Book excerpt: The year is 1893, and Pearl Ryan, a young woman with a checkered past, arrives in Ruby City, a silver mining town full of scoundrels—one to which no respectable woman would ever travel. Pearl sets up shop as the town laundress, but is clearly no ordinary charwoman: She is courted by many and the local doctor often solicits her assistance as his nurse. Pearl’s dream is to attend medical school—not a small feat for a woman alone in the Wild West—and hopes that the proceeds from her newly inherited mining claim will pay for her education. Meanwhile, laundry is her bread and butter. As laundress, however, Pearl is privy to many secrets she’d rather not know. As a student of the healing arts, she recognizes the symptoms of poisoning when she sees them. And as a woman with a past she’d rather keep hidden, she must solve the murders plaguing Ruby City before US marshals arrive.