Publisher's Synopsis
Shanghaiing-for sailors on leave in Old San Francisco, a risk ever present. For two young sisters sold into vice, a means to survive. Yva and Julie-Marie Gattes come on their stepfather's self-appointed task to spread the gospel in the Barbary Coast, the notorious red-light district. But soon he is kidnapped and sent far overseas. The sisters are left to fend for themselves at the Danse Joyeuse, a saloon and brothel. There they find their guile and turn to crime, conspiring with the house to abduct the very customers who would degrade them. At the Danse they meet Jane Bownes, a cross-dressing gangster bent on rescuing other women from the trade. She leads them to Jiminy Deal, the ruthless whoremaster and racketeer who helped sell them out and, at last, to his mentor, the arcane swindler Jonas Finch. Justice is near, but it comes at a cost-one the sisters may find too dear to pay.
