San Francisco became my muse the moment I moved to the city in 1999. That’s why I’ve written two literary mysteries set in San Francisco (and two literary thrillers). The fog, the hills, and the city’s rich history make it a great setting for dark, twisty tales with a literary bent. Just ask Alfred Hitchcock!
My first literary mystery, the New York Times bestseller The Year of Fog, opens with the disappearance of a six-year-old child on Ocean Beach. If you know the beach, you know how dense the fog is in summertime, so dense you can only see a few feet in front of you. It felt like the perfect location to set a story of a missing child, and her soon-to-be-stepmother’s obsessive search. Anyone who has spent any time in San Francisco’s outer avenues, Sutro Baths, or Land’s End will recognize the settings in the book.
Next came No One You Know, in which a coffee buyer has a chance encounter with the man accused of murdering her math prodigy sister twenty years before. The man was never arrested. After her carefully structured life is upended by the meeting, Jenny sets out to discover the truth behind her sister’s death. If you know Noe Valley, you’ll feel right at home.
Richmond has established herself as mistress as the kind of literary mystery that packs the punch of a fine thriller, but with added insight and wisdom.
London Daily Mail
So, if you’re looking for a literary mystery set in San Francisco, whether you’re a native, an armchair traveler, or someone who once fell in love with the City by the Bay, I hope you’ll consider my books.
Title: The Year of Fog
Publisher: Random House Books
Summary:
The New York Times bestselling literary mystery about memory, obsession, and one woman's search for a missing child.
"Profound, deeply moving, endlessly gripping; you will devour it in a weekend and turn it over to begin again.” ~Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less
Get the book: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bookshop.org
"I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. A missing child, a haunting neighborhood, a search for love…The Year of Fog has it all. Make a sandwich now: you won’t stop reading for hours." Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of TheJetsetters
"Wonderful...fascinating." The San Francisco Chronicle
"Mesmerizing and harrowing." London Daily Mail
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About the Book
Life changes in an instant. On a foggy San Francisco beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason—photographer, fiancée soon-to-be-stepmother—looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child’s disappearance, and of one woman’s unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love.
Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger’s van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning—and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach.
Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma’s father finds solace in religion and scientific probability—but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all—as the truth of Emma’s disappearance unravels with stunning force.
A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope—of the choices we make and the choices made for us—The Year of Fog, now in its 31st printing, is a classic literary mystery set in San Francisco, a tour de force about memory, forgetting, love, and forgiveness.
- A Kirkus Reviews Top Pick for Reading Groups
- A New York Times bestseller
- A Washington Post "A List" book
- Best Books of the Year, Library Journal & News of the World
- A San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book
- An official selection of Silicon Valley Reads
Get the book: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bookshop.org / AudibleTitle: No One You Know
Publisher: Random House Books
Summary:
"Heartbreaking and compelling...a thoroughly riveting literary mystery." Booklist, starred review
"An intelligent, emotionally convincing tale about a family tragedy and the process of storytelling." The Boston Globe
"Richmond follows her compulsively readable The Year of Fog with an equally addictive encore." The Denver Post
About the Book
All her life Ellie Enderlin had been known as Lila’s sister. Until one day, without warning, the shape of their family changed forever. Twenty years ago, Lila, a top math student at Stanford, was murdered in a crime that was never solved. In the aftermath of her sister’s death, Ellie entrusted her most intimate feelings to a man who turned the story into a bestselling true crime book—a book that both devastated her family and identified one of Lila’s professors as the killer.
Decades later, two Americans meet in a remote village in Nicaragua. Ellie is now a professional coffee buyer, an inveterate traveler and incapable of trust. Peter is a ruined academic. And their meeting is not by chance. As rain beats down on the steaming rooftops of the village, Peter leaves Ellie with a gift—the notebook that Lila carried everywhere, a piece of evidence not found with her body. Stunned, Ellie will return home to San Francisco to explore the mysteries of Lila’s notebook, filled with mathematical equations, and begin a search that has been waiting for her all these years. It will lead her to a hundred-year-old mathematical puzzle, to a lover no one knew Lila had, to the motives and fate of the man who profited from their family’s anguish. A novel about the stories and lies that strangers, lovers and families tell—and the secrets we keep even from ourselves.
For fans of Alice Sebold, Kate Atkinson, and Gillian Flynn.
Title: Golden State - the Novel
Publisher: Random House Books
Summary: “Mesmerizing and intricate, Richmond’s dissection of California on the violent brink of secession from the nation provides the backdrop for her deeper inspection of the fragile relationship between siblings…riveting.” Booklist, starred review of Golden State, the novel
"So imaginative, so heartfelt, so deftly made–a masterful braid of memory and urgency. Richmond is in top form, and has made a book of exquisite grace." Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less
Bookshop.org / Amazon / Audible / Apple / Barnes & Noble / Kindle / Kobo
Winner of the Earphones Audio Award. Listen to an audiobook sample.
See other Michelle Richmond novels set in San Francisco.
About the Book
The state of California votes on secession in the wake of a divisive presidential election in this gripping, prescient novel of marriage, family, and social upheaval set in modern-day San Francisco.
Doctor Julie Walker, a general internist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Francisco, has just signed her divorce papers when she receives news that her younger sister, Heather, has gone into labor. Though theirs is a strained relationship, Julie sets out for the hospital to be at her sister’s side—no easy task since the streets of San Francisco have erupted into chaos. Today is the day that Californians are voting on whether or not to secede from the United States. It is also the day that Julie will find herself at the epicenter of a violent standoff with a former lover who has become obsessed with her.
Throughout the ordeal, Julie’s estranged husband, desperate for reconciliation, sends out coded messages from the radio station where he is the well-known Voice of Midnight.
The novel GOLDEN STATE takes readers on a journey over the course of a single, unforgettable day. It is both a literary thriller and a meditation on marriage, love, and loyalty. Like The Year of Fog, it is a page-turner with a philosophical bent.
Get the reading group guide for The Year of Fog on Bookreporter.
Read the story behind the book for No One You Know. It involves Graham Greene, the Russian River, and a chance meeting with an iconic rock-and-roll writer for Rolling Stone.
Need music for your literary mystery book club? Get The Year of Fog playlist.
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