The Victorian San Francisco Mystery series is based on the research M. Louisa Locke did for her doctorate in history at the University of California, San Diego about women who worked in the far west at the end of the 19th century. The series features Annie Fuller, a boardinghouse owner and pretend clairvoyant, and Nate Dawson, a San Francisco lawyer, who together with family and friends from the O'Farrell Street boarding house investigate murders and other crimes.