By Bonnie ZoBell
Open the cover, turn to the first page, and you are in a time capsule–China before Mao; France, Germany, Italy and Poland during World War II; San Francisco in a time when private eyes spoke strangled English to shapely, fawning, double-dealing babes; San Quentin prison when the death penalty was carried out by dropping a potassium cyanide pellet into a pail of sulfuric acid.
A powerful stream of tradition runs through these stories wherever and whenever they are set. But the stronger current is their persistent moral tone. What is True? What is right? Who raises above the weight of convention to choose good above evil? Who fails, and why? That is where these stories take us, no matter how diverse their topic, tone or setting. The reader is transported to the brink of a moral cliff, peers over the edge into the abyss, and is pulled back by love or logic or laughter. It is an exhilarating experience from beginning to end.
My favorite Lester Gorn story: Spanish Lesson. My favorite James N. Frey story: Where True Love Can Take you.
When the morning is foggy, you may want to spend a few hours in one of the city’s many world-class museums. Golden Gate Park is home to the copper-clad M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, which houses an impressive collection of contemporary and indigenous art. The de Young Museum’s former Asian collection is now permanently housed in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, located in the Civic Center . Across from the de Young Museum stands the California Academy of Sciences, which holds a huge array of science exhibits, including an aquarium and a natural history museum.