Occupation: Private Investigator
Nicholas Moore’s Detective Agency was the fifteenth door of the day, and it was only ten in the morning. I’d been looking for a job for weeks, and my knuckles were calloused from knocking on so many doors. I shivered before knocking. It was a typical summer day in San Francisco. Damp and miserable.
“Come in,” yelled a voice with an accent that was both southern but not, East Coast, but not. A slender man—somewhere in his late thirties—was sitting at a desk hunched over a typewriter, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was glaring at the typewriter keys as if willing them to start typing on their own. He looked up.
“You need a job?” he said.
I nodded. Then I saw it. A spider as big as a quarter was marching across the desktop, three inches away from his hand. I whacked it with my purse, hard, killing it with one blow.
“You’re hired. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Margaret Laurent. Most people call me Maggie.”
“Maggie, it is.” He pulled a flask from an inside pocket of his jacket, took a healthy swig before putting it back, and then winked at me. “I’ve got a dicey meeting this morning. Always need a little bracer when meeting with the D.A. He doesn’t like me. It’s a hundred a month with a Christmas bonus,” he said. “If I’m not back by two, call my lawyer, Harvey Cohen. He’s in the phonebook.”
He reached into the desk drawer and threw me a key. I caught it.
“You’re a lifesaver, sweetheart. First, hit the Examiner building on 3rd and Market. Tell Caldwell, the Managing Editor, to hold the story on the Wells killing. Things are about to pop. Then track down the department store dick at the City of Paris—a guy by the name of O’Grady. We worked on the Cavanaugh job together. Tell him that Buster Krebs just got thrown in the Big House, so no worries. Then go to Podesta Baldocchi and pick up a corsage I ordered. I’ve got a hot date tonight. Have them put it on my tab. Next, swing by the Palace Hotel. There’s an old Pinkerton pal of mine by the name of Rainey. He’s their hotel dick. Tell him Shooter McCormick is coming in on the 2.34 pm train from Chicago, and we need to watch our backs for a bit. Got that? I need to hoof it.” He said all this with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.
“Sure. The Examiner building, City of Paris, Podesta Baldocchi, and the Palace Hotel.”
When I told my mother that I got a job and that my salary was a whopping one hundred dollars a month, we danced around the living room until we collapsed on the sofa in a fit of relieved giggles.
“How was your first day?” she asked.
“Lots of typing and filing. You know, the usual.”
My first lie, but not my last.
THE CROOKEDEST STREET IN THE WORLD
Series: A Fog City Noir Mystery, Book 3
Genre: Historical Mystery 1930s
Release: June 2026
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
Maggie Laurent, P.I., is slowly making a name for herself in San Francisco, but it’s slow going. She is keeping the office open, but just barely. Her best friend, Maureen Dunleavy, who is on the verge of taking her final vows to become a nun, asks Maggie for her help. This entails Maggie confronting the former principal of her high school—a woman Maggie despises. At stake is the life of a young Chinese novitiate. Maggie braves San Francisco’s underworld to keep her safe, bringing down the wrath of the mayor and police chief of San Francisco, and the kingpins of the prostitution, gambling, and drug trades operated by Chinese gang lords on her head.
Meet the author
Ms. Johnson’s first book in her mystery series, published by Level Best Books, is set in Prohibition-era San Francisco and features Maggie Laurent, P.I. In 2025, Fog City was nominated for the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel from the Private Eyes Writers of America and won the Macavity Award for Best Historical Mystery by Mystery Readers International. In 2026, the second book in this series, City Lights, was nominated for a Lefty Award for Best Historical Fiction. The third book in this series, Crookedest Street in the World, is scheduled to be published in June 2026. Connect with Claire at www.clairemjohnsonwrites.com.