The story of the friendship between two women: a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake-now a young deputy county coroner in Arizona-and a Whiskey Row saloon girl from Prescott, Arizona. Together they learn about their two very different worlds as they unravel a murder that leads them on a wild chase to San Francisco and back to Arizona-all to stop the assassination of Theodore Roosevelt atop a high dam on the tenuous eve of Arizona's statehood. Along the way, they collect a remarkable crew of friends to help them, including astronomer Percival Lowell. Historical fiction.