Praise for Mercury"s Rise... "Mercury is poison, but Inez Stannert"s latest adventure is pure gold." -Sarah Smith Agatha-winning author of The Other Side of Dark It"s 1880, and Inez Stannert is traveling to the fashionable summer retreat of Manitou for a reunion with her son, now a toddler in the care of her sister. Suddenly a fellow passenger, Edward Pace, grows faint, swigs some medicine, and dies under their horrified gaze. Pace"s widow begs Inez to investigate. Soon Inez uncovers the shady side of spa tourism including spurious claims, profiteering, and medical practitioners who kindle false hopes in the desperate and dying. Then Inez"s husband reappears after a year ­and ­a ­half"s unexplained absence. Now she must fight to hold on to her child and the life she has built for herself.... Ann Parker is a science writer by day, and lives in the San Francisco Bay area www.annparker.net