The Memoirs of Caesar Honore

August 1849. A young Bostonian's fate is sealed less than two hours after he lands in San Francisco. Judge Hyrum Milton has a "curious enterprise" for the newly-minted parolee: disassemble the beautiful red-and-yellow-lacquered made-in-China Vista Del Mar bawdy house in Monterey (where the California Constitutional Convention is taking place) and reassemble it as the Vista Del Monte in the vortex of the California Gold Rush, Sonoran Camp. The judge, who happens to own the Vista, also happens to have a vivacious daughter. She and Caesar fall in love amid the chaos of banditos, California politics, Indians, parents, murder, religious zealots, Missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz, John C. Fremont and his family, grizzly bears, high-stakes gambling, placer mining, travel writer Bayard Taylor, crooked Yankee traders-and seven young prostitutes. Inspired by a conversation with Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner (details in the Afterword).