The Silk Train Murder — Sharon Rowse

                 Silk Trains.  Fan dancers.  Opium Dens
             More dangerous than chasing Klondike gold

At the turn of the last century, sleek liners carried a fortune in silk from the Orient to Vancouver. The costly material, insured by the day, was rushed to New York in specially designed silk trains, which became the target of every crook across the continent. 

Down on his luck gentleman John Lansdowne Granville washes up in Vancouver, hungry and broke. Running from his past, afraid of his future. Until he his best friend's arrest for murder. Granville's desperate hunt to find the real killer before they hang his friend takes him to the seedy side of the city; to burlesque halls, gambling joints and down along Dupont Street--two blocks of brothels and opium dens along the reeking mudflats. Along the way he finds companionship in odd places and an ally--and more--in Emily Turner, the emancipated daughter of a very Victorian father.