April 1891, as the dusty frontier city of San Diego recovers from a collapsing real estate bubble, residents look forward to the arrival of Benjamin Harrison, the first US president to visit their city. Little do they suspect that some of their citizens are planning an attack on the president and his train.



Fourteen-year-old Johnny Cong, an enterprising orphan of mixed parentage, lives in the Stingaree district of the city, a degenerate slum where he ekes out a living driving a donkey cart. Johnny believes in the American Dream, but when a mysterious Norwegian named John Sigerson hires him as a guide, he must navigate a dangerous path between loyalty and treason.



Equal parts spy thriller, western, coming-of-age story, and Sherlockian intrigue, The Deadly Stingaree tells the remarkable story of this young man and his notable friends—a notorious gunslinger, a former Buffalo soldier, a crusading female attorney, and the world’s greatest detective—who saved the president and the union that day.



Is it fact, fiction, or some devious combination of both?