Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco

by Gary Krist

The sensational, forgotten true story of a woman who murdered her married lover in Gilded Age San Francisco and the trial that epitomized the city's transformation from raucous frontier town into modern metropolis—from the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Sin

Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. “I did it and I don’t deny it,” she said when arrested shortly thereafter. “He ruined both myself and my daughter.”

Though little remembered today, the trial of Laura D. Fair for the murder of her lover, A. P. Crittenden, made headlines nationwide. As bestselling author Gary Krist reveals, the operatic facts of the case—a woman strung along for years by a two-timing man, killing him in an alleged fit of madness—challenged an American populace still searching for moral consensus after the Civil War. The trial shone an early and uncomfortable spotlight on social issues like the role of women, the sanctity of the family, and the range of acceptable expressions of gender, while jolting the still-adolescent metropolis of 1870s San Francisco, a city eager to shed its rough-and-tumble Gold Rush-era reputation.

Trespassers at the Golden Gate brings readers inside the untamed frontier town, a place where—for a brief period—otherwise marginalized communities found unique opportunities. Readers meet a secretly wealthy Black housekeeper, an enterprising Chinese brothel madam, and a French rabble-rouser who refused to dress in sufficiently “feminine” clothing—as well as familiar figures like Mark Twain and Susan B. Anthony, who become swept up in the drama of the Laura Fair affair. 

Krist, who previously brought New Orleans to vivid life in Empire of Sin and Chicago in City of Scoundrels, recounts this astonishing story and its surprisingly modern echoes in a rollicking narrative that probes what it all meant—both for a nation still scarred by war and for a city eager for the world stage.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime, Audiobook, Biography, American History

532 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 11, 2025

About the author

Gary Krist is the author of four previous narrative nonfiction books: The White Cascade, City of Scoundrels, Empire of Sin, and The Mirage Factory. He has also written three novels and two short story collections. A widely published journalist and book reviewer, Krist has been the recipient of the Stephen Crane Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Lowell Thomas gold medal for travel journalism, a fiction fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. His newest book--Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco--will be published in March of 2025.

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's about the journey and not the destination. For anyone who picks up Gary Krist's Trespassers at the Golden Gate, I highly recommend keeping this in mind. After all, from the first few pages you already find out who is the killer, the victim, and the superficial "why" it happened. The full story of this murder includes the city of San Francisco from its infancy to its tumultuous adolescent years (I'm going to the mountains to find gold and you can't stop me, dad!) and finally the push for maturity and legitimacy. You have to know the story of San Fran because this murder couldn't happen like this in New York City or New Orleans in the Gilded Age.

Krist is one of my favorite authors since I read his terrifying The White Cascade (seriously, I call it horror non-fiction). What I love about his writing is that it feels smooth from the first page and that Krist never settles for the easy interpretation of any singular element. Sure, he could tell you why Mrs. Fair did what she did by being myopic. It would be a hell of a short book and uninteresting to boot. However, Fair doesn't commit her crime in a vacuum. The ability for someone to remake (read: hide) themselves in the American west meant volatile temperaments and secrets ran wild. Activities that "polite" society would never tolerate were allowed to fester. Rampant and wild swings of financial fortune and misfortune were commonplace.

All of this is to say, this book is more complex and, in my opinion, immensely more rewarding than just the story of a crime. Yes, you will feel the normal emotions which accompany tragedy. The sympathy for the victims (there are less of them than you would think!), the rage at the perpetrators (so many people need a good slap in this story), and finally the strange feeling that justice could never truly come in this case. However, you will also understand the society around these actions and just how San Francisco went from a jumping off point for miners looking for a big score to a metropolis with its own strengths and peculiarities. I think there will be a few reviewers who will say there is extraneous material in this book. I respectfully but vehemently disagree. This is a complete story.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Crown Publishing.)

[Linda Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Fair - someone I'd never heard of before, to my recollection. Many years ago in 1870 she was the talk of the town after she shot and killed her married lover of 7 years on the ferry between Oakland and San Francisco.

This was an interesting book, to say the least. Scandalous! And though I don't usually read true-crime books, I had to read this one because it happened in San Francisco and I'm a Californiaphile.

WHAT is a Californiaphile? Good question. That's a real word. Google's AI overview: "A 'californiaphile' is someone who has a strong fondness or admiration for the state of California, often characterized by a positive and enthusiastic view of the state's culture, lifestyle, or environment."

That describes me, and millions of other Californians. I was born in this state and have lived here most of my life. At one time I lived in San Francisco. I'm a SF Bay Area native, born in Oakland. And right now I'm living as far north as I can get, just about, without tripping over the state line into Oregon. It is like I'm trying to get away from the craziness but can't quite manage to tear myself away.

Anyhow, the book about Laura Fair and her wretched love life is one anyone involved in an affair should consider reading. The married man she fell in love with was a real jerk, scoundrel, liar, and in general, untrustworthy person. But did he deserve to be shot while sitting next to his wife and two of their children? Did he deserve to be shot at all? Laura Fair had had enough!!!

That said, it was hard to like any of these characters. Falling in love with someone else's husband is such a stupid thing to do, but for nearly the first year of the relationship she didn't know the man was married.

The book tells of the crime at the beginning. The rest of the book is about the court case along with flash-backs to everything that led up to the clash between Laura and the man who misled her. The book intertwines bits of San Francisco history with a focus on the two famous writers of that era: Bret Harte and Mark Twain.

Interesting book. If you read it, don't expect to like the main characters.

[CatReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gary Krist is an American fiction and nonfiction writer; I have previously read his 2018 book The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles about the early days of Los Angeles and still think about this book frequently. Similarly to this earlier work, Krist's 2025 book Trespassers at the Golden Gate looks at another aspect of early California history, focused on San Francisco during the decades around the Civil War. Krist takes a similar approach to storytelling here, focusing on a handful of notable characters whose stories represent various elements of the early California experience - the conflict between the frontier mentality and the morality and propriety of the Victorian age, the interplay between white early Californians (many of whom came from the Eastern and Southern US, in search of gold, luck, prosperity, or all three) and people of Black, Latino, indigenous, and Asian descent who also lived and worked in the area, and the way San Francisco evolved as intercontinental railroads were finally completed. Though the title and subtitle allude to the central storyline of the book, the ill-fated love triangle between attorney Alexander Crittenden, his wife Clara, and his long-time mistress Laura Fair, that ended in murder and a highly publicized trial, much of the book is on the broader context (which I see has disappointed some reviewers - a broader title or subtitle would have likely obviated this issue).

Definitely recommended for anyone who's interested in early California history more broadly.

Further reading: contemporaneous stories of the American West
Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David Randall
The Last Ride of the Pony Express: My 2,000-mile Horseback Journey into the Old West by Will Grant
Bandit Heaven: The Hole-in-the-Wall Gangs and the Final Chapter of the Wild West by Tom Clavin
The Divorce Colony: How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier by April White

My statistics:
Book 218 for 2025
Book 2144 cumulatively

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, while masterfully researched, the title should actually be: A Complete History of San Francisco, with Mark Twain, oh, and a Bit of a Long Drawn out Affair Ending in a Murder that is Actually Only About 25% of the Book.

While I'm sure riveting at the time, when muddled with every other topic thrown in, it got so muddled and repetitive.

[Kelsey Baguinat · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75⭐️

[Erik B.K.K. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utterly dull. It's just a boring murder, with boring people whom I did not care about at all. Another writer might have lifted the story, but Gary Krist's writing does nothing for it. A far cry from something like Murderland by Caroline Fraser.

[EuroHackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, a joy to read a new narrative nonfiction book by this author. He is able to masterfully weave an intriguing tale out of primary source documents without resorting to fictional dramatics or characterization, or imagined conversations or courtroom theatrics.

This time, Mr Krist dives into 1870s San Francisco, as the burgeoning town is trying to break free from its Wild West past and obtain Victorian dignity. The main story is that of the trial of Laura Fair for the murder of her lover, AP Crittendon (and if ever there was a dude who deserved to die for the way he treated, well, everybody in his personal life, it was this guy). She did shoot him - she never denied it - but her trial became a referendum on Victorian society and the role of "proper" women in it.

Laced together with this is the rise of the wave of literature, led by Bret Harte and Mark Twain; and the racial hostilities between Southern whites, who flocked to California to make their fortunes in gold and then silver in the Sierra mountains, and the native peoples and Mexicans (who were there first) and the Blacks and Chinese, who arrived for work, enslaved or otherwise. Just as women were fighting for their rights as equals, so were the racial minorities raging against the Victorian-era racism and classism. A lot of time is given to Ah Toy and Mary Ellen Pleasant (a powerful woman who was derided as the original "mammy"), as well as Laura Fair.

How delightful that San Francisco is now the gayest city in America - the prissy Victorian whites depicted in these pages would be rolling in their graves so hard that they'd bore holes into the earth, LOL.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate to rate this one so average, because I so love Gary Krist's previous three books. I think he just feel in love with the amount of material (i.e. letters) that were available. I don't feel like I understand the city of San Francisco any better, much less its essential idea. This doesn't work as a "city" book, but it's also a little tedious as a true crime tale, even. By the time Fair got around to shooting Crittenden, I was ready to cheer. The relationship was absolutely toxic, and they were both gross Confederate sympathizers. Like, the only legal accomplishment Krist mentions that Crittenden achieved is disenfranching black people in some way. I mean, I'm still all-in for Krist's next book with bells on, but please stick to the Progressive Era, man.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great. Googly. Moogly.

What a story!! What an ending [I was so not expecting THAT at all!]!!

Filled with expertly researched writing, this book tells tells the story of obsession masked as love, how this kind of obsession happens [and in this case, several times over], how nobody wins ever in obsession cases, and how things escalated from "love" to murder in the early days of the American west [we meet many characters of this time, including Mark Twain, as well as diving into the history of the awful treatment of Asians and African Americans - this part of the book was really fascinating and really added to the story].

Absolutely twistedly fantastic.

Thank you to NetGalley, Gary Krist, and Crown Publishing/Crown for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[David Hymas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. I thought it was going to be a broader description of mid-century San Francisco in the context of an infamous murder. Having spent a lot of time in SF and working downtown for a number of years, I was looking forward to that history. And it definitely had some of that. But overall I didn’t feel like there was that much there, there. Somehow the book got 12 hours in the audio out of a murder that honestly wasn’t that interesting, and by the end I was trying to figure out how I found this book since it didn’t grab me with the narrative.

[Nancy Osman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the history of San Francisco told in this book was fascinating. I was sad to learn about how racist a city it was in its inception, but not necessarily surprised.
I absolutely couldn’t stand AP and almost felt like everyone was better off for what Laura did! I believe he absolutely did make her crazy and an insanity defense was one hundred percent legitimate in her case.
I felt terrible for Clara and his what seemed like 45 children (was it 12??). In that time I don’t think Clara had a choice but to stay with him. She should have planned to take him out with Laura!
I’m glad in the end that Laura was acquitted. Although she did kill someone, I think she did her time and laid the price. Again, I think he drove her to it with his mental torture.
I also loved the few snippets about Mark Twain. I’m going to try and find out more about the play he wrote about Laura.
Good read.

[Marc Stephenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is better as an account of the birth of San Francisco as a city in the 19th century than it is as a murder story. Given that the title mentions murder and the act itself is described at the beginning of the book, I don't think that it's a spoiler to talk about it, but by the time that the book gets back around to the murder again later in the book, I was completely tired of all of the people involved!

The book does a good job of describing the characters, events, and social conditions associated with the growth of San Francisco, but it fails to make the murder story all that compelling, particularly given how sensational the events and trial was at the time. 3.5 stars.

[Doug Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picking up a historical account of San Francisco that uses a notorious crime as its centerpiece has been done before, but Krist does an admirable job relating the growth of SF without succumbing too much to the melodrama of the murder at its heart.

[Nancy Loe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, the crime in this case is a rather slender one and the book lags as a result.

[Ann Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, it’s beautifully written and is reminiscent of Erik Larson’s storytelling methods & Jon Krakauer’s evocative writing. I am a big fan of non-fiction books that draw you in to a dramatic personal story while seamlessly weaving in fascinating historical facts. I learned so much about the history of San Francisco, and given that I live here, I felt personally invested in the story. Let’s give Gary Krist some love guys, and the attention he’s due!

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a really hard time NOT finishing a book once I start it, and I plodded along to about page 236 of this one before I finally threw in the towel. The underlying story, about a pathetic man who repeats the same blatant lies to the same foolish women hundreds of times over, quickly becomes a bore. The occasionally interesting historical bits about SF are the only things that keep it going, and barely (or not, in my case). I should have given up 100 pages ago.

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but ultimately scratches the surface on too many topics. The writing itself was bland and felt like more like an editorial piece instead of a book.

[Biblio Files (takingadayoff) · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Gary Krist's The Mirage Factory, about 1920s Los Angeles, I could not wait to read his latest, Trespassers at the Golden Gate. While The Mirage Factory focused on three outsized Los Angeles personalities (William Mulholland, Aimee Semple Macpherson, and D. W. Griffith), Trespassers at the Golden Gate zeroes in on a notorious murder trial in 1870s San Francisco. The defendant, Laura Fair, had murdered her lover of seven years, attorney and married family man Alexander P. Crittenden. While the events leading up to the shooting, and the trial itself, are captivating, Krist broadens the story to show how San Francisco grew from a small port town before the Gold Rush, to a major American metropolis when the railroad finally reached all the way across the continent. Along the way we learn about the early careers of Bret Harte and Mark Twain, but more interestingly, about some lesser known San Franciscans of the era. Krist highlights the stories of Ah Toy, a Chinese businesswoman (okay, she was a madame), who vigorously defended her rights (such as they were) in court; and Mary Ellen Pleasant, a Black woman who ran boarding houses, but seems to have made most of her fortune through skillful arbitrage, and used much of her money helping fugitive slaves to safety. Krist describes how the status of women changed during the early years of California statehood and describes in vivid and well-documented detail, just what a diverse and animated group of characters populated mid 19th century San Francisco. (Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a digital review copy.)

[Mark Luebker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not a fan of true crime stories, so I actually skipped over Trespassers at the Golden Gate when I saw it available as an advance reading copy on NetGalley. But I got a note from someone at the publisher reminding me that I’d read and reviewed another Gary Krist book and enjoyed the heck out of it. Two books actually: first, The Mirage Factory, then City of Scoundrels. Both told the origins of American cities—the former Los Angeles, the latter Chicago—through the stories of a handful of people or pivotal events, written in an engaging style.

So I downloaded Trespassers, and sure enough, he was doing it again. This time the reader learns about the early days and development of San Francisco through the prism of the Fair-Crittenden case in 1870. A.P. Crittenden was an attorney in California during the waning days of gold rush, hoping to make his fortune. He set up shop as an attorney, was elected to the first state legislature, and was an early settler in nascent San Francisco, where he eventually brought his wife, Clara, and their six children to live. He also acquired a mistress, Laura Fair, and for some seven years, told her he planned to leave his wife and marry her. When circumstances revealed that wasn’t going to happen, Laura Fair shot Crittenden dead, in front of Clara and the children. That’s the “love, murder, and madness” the cover of the book highlights. And make no mistake, it’s all there, beautifully told by Krist in his highly readable and entertaining style.

But the backstories he reveals of Crittenden, his wife Clara, and Laura Fair—reaching back across the country to Kentucky, West Point, Texas, Mississippi, and Nevada—tell a much larger tale of a young country expanding across a continent, the ambitions of those who fueled that expansion, and the rapidly growing city where they all came together.

If you want to know how the case turned out, there are dozens of articles out there that will sum it up for you in a few hundred words. But if you want to know who these people were, what forces brought them together, and why things turned out as they did, read the book, instead. Krist is a gifted storyteller, whose books are nonfiction/history, but read like some of the best novels.

[Mairin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Krist uses a shocking 1870 murder - in full view of a ferry boat of travelers - to delve deep into mid-19th century San Francisco, and how quickly the city went from barely inhabited backwater to gold rush frenzy to Victorian respectability.

Laura Fair and her lover A.P. Crittenden are at the center of this story but arguably San Francisco is the main character. Between the late 1840s and 1875, the city lurched between boom and bust, breakneck construction and devastation by fire, respectability and scandal. Laura, a transplant from New Orleans, with two husbands already in the rear view mirror by the time she lands in California, is always striving for prosperity and social stature. Crittenden, also from the South, married with five children, maintains a successful legal career yet spends much of his adult life mired in debt. The two carry on an affair over seven years marked by declarations of love, angry separations, passionate reunions and broken promises. Ultimately, Crittenden's failure to divorce his wife drives Laura to desperation. The trial that transfixed San Francisco tries to determine if she murdered her lover in a fit of madness or whether the crime was coldly calculated.

Many other memorable characters inhabit Trespassers, all transplants from elsewhere Mary Ellen Pleasants, a successful black businesswoman possibly from Philadelphia, who deserves an entire limited series all to herself. Ah Toy, A Chinese immigrant and a prosperous Madam. Both women left a trail of legal actions in which they asserted their rights and those of others in their community.

William Chapman Ralston, the ultimate booster of San Francisco, an Ohio transplant to rose to the pinnacle of fortune in the city with the Comstock Lode and then lost it all when he overextended himself and the Bank of California, the financial institution he founded.

Trespassers is an entertaining and illuminating read with the drama of a novel.

[DeWayne Neel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The discovery of gold in California changed the course of American history, and in the process, catered to a "new breed of frontiersman". Greed brought all kinds of "characters" to the West. With gold and silver in the mountains, the new city of San Francisco developed from a mud-hole to a fine city. It began with a population of ninety-nine percent men of low repute, all in search of wealth.
Within this mass, a few arise to manage the money and at the same time amass personal riches, and create a following of enemies. Marriages of convenience, murder, robbery, dirty contracts, and crooked lawyers appear. A.P. Crittenen, lawyer: Laura Fair, gold-digger: Mark Twain, writer; Brett Harte, writer; and General Sherman, soldier; all enter the picture of promises never delivered and money that seemed never to be enough.
A.P. was married, and Laura Fair was a widow whom he could not stay away from, despite his wife always looking for her husband to sleep in her bed, which he only did often enough to keep her pregnant. The mineral riches of Virginia City provided them some earnings to begin a path to big money, but as often, it was never enough, and divorce from his wife never happened. A comedy of bed hopping was expensive, but it was carried on for years.
In a surprise visit, Mary killed A.P. and the trial that ended in the death penalty, but upon an appeal, she was found innocent due to insanity. The women of San Francisco celebrated, but the refined businessmen were not so convinced.
Mary's redemption is filled with problems as her money supply becomes smaller. She died with funds just over $1000. A lifestyle of the rich, famous, love, hate, and lies is told by Mr. Krist in a interesting fashion.

[Dan Dundon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s unusual when a non-fiction book dedicated to one sensational murder trial morphs into a history lesson of the region in which the murder took place.
That’s exactly what happens with Gary Krist’s book on the 1870 murder that took place on a ferryboat in San Francisco Bay. The basic story entailed a woman who murdered her married lover while his wife and family watched. The trial of Laura D. Fair made headlines across the country but is not widely remembered today.
Krist uses the murder to also tell the story of San Francisco during the period after the Civil War. It’s interesting to see how the city was divided between Confederacy sympathizers and Union supporters.
Krist also uses the murder to examine social issues such as the role of women in society at the time as well as race relations especially with respect to the growing Chinese population.
Perhaps what struck me the most while reading this book was the extent of deep divisions in society at the time. Those divisions have largely been replaced in our current society with new concerns dividing the right and the left. Perhaps such cultural divisions are a constant in society.
If I have any quibbles, it’s the extent of Krist’s diversions into somewhat related historical events. For example, Krist devotes ample pages to the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. While this history is interesting, it could easily have been mentioned in passing rather than generating its own chapter.
Nevertheless, the writing is excellent and the research top notch. It is worth the dedication of time needed to read this book.

[Drtaxsacto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Krist has a marvelous ability to start from a relatively obscure event and to then build a story about a more general subject. Like Eric Larson, who does a similar thing, his books are interesting and informative. This book concerns the murder of AP Critenden by Laura Fair. Critenden was a successful San Francisco attorney who carried on a somewhat open assignation with Fair over a number of years. While he seems to have been a pretty lawyer, he was a horrible human being - stringing along his wife and his mistress and indeed introducing the two. Had I been Fair I would have popped the bugger off much earlier. Fair murdered him in a public place and after the first trial was convicted and sentenced to be hanged but because of some procedural errors was granted a retrial and ultimately acquitted. Krist uses original documentation and detailed research to write a compelling story. Like his earlier book on LA (Mirage) his character development is first rate.

I have one very minor quibble with this book. The defense team built a case for insanity which was ultimately successful. Part of their case was built upon the testimony of a quack doctor. But I think in several instances he links current day thinking to Victorian California mores. The picture he paints of San Francisco in the time between the Gold Rush and the 1880s is vivid and I think mostly accurate. But I think at times he tries to impose his values on Victorians.

Even with that minor lapse - this book is as good as the LA book and well worth your time.

[Keila (speedreadstagram) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an absolutely riveting account that transports you back to Gilded-Age San Francisco, capturing the city's transformation from a rough frontier town to a burgeoning metropolis. The sensational true story of Laura D. Fair, who murdered her married lover A. P. Crittenden, is told with such vivid detail and emotional depth that I found myself completely immersed from the first page. The author masterfully unravels the complex layers of this case, highlighting the social issues of the time, including the role of women, the sanctity of the family, and the various expressions of gender. I was particularly struck by the way the trial of Laura Fair became a reflection of the broader societal changes and moral struggles post-Civil War America was grappling with. The inclusion of characters like a wealthy Black housekeeper, an enterprising Chinese brothel madam, and a French rabble-rouser adds richness to the narrative, showing the diverse and often overlooked lives in 1870s San Francisco.

The meticulous research and compelling storytelling make this book not just a recounting of a murder trial but a deep dive into the social dynamics and transformative energy of the time. It’s a book that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.


Thank you to @crownpublishing @garykirst4225 and @netgalley for the e-arc. All thoughts are my own.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gary Krist is a wonderful teller of history. The problem with "Trespassers at the Golden Gate" is that there isn't much of a compelling story to tell. Not his fault, but another doomed love triangle (not a spoiler, it's in the book's flyleaf) is a tad beneath his great skills.

Krist does his usual excellent job in describing the aftermath of the gold rush and the growth of San Francisco. But the three people at the story's center are awfully predictable and really hard to like. A selfish coward, a lovesick woman and an ignored wife make for pretty rote soap opera.

As always, the depth of Krist's research is a wonder. He paints a compelling portrait of this Pacific Coast boomtown and its colorful denizens. But he's attempting a major hurdle in that his main protagonists are less interesting than their surroundings. He breathes life into these folks but the balloon doesn't take flight (see what I did there?)

Enough about that. Krist's last three books: "Empire of Sin," "City of Scoundrels" and "The Mirage Factory" are as good as narrative history gets - stories full of real-life characters who do weird, wicked and even wonderful things. You'll love those real-life stories filled with surprising twists and colorful folks. "Trespassers at the Golden Gate" just doesn't measure up to the high bar Krist usually clears with ease.

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gary Krist's "Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco" is both a look at a sensational criminal trial in 1870 San Francisco and a description of a modest frontier town evolving into a major metropolis. The prosecution of Laura D. Fair, accused of murdering her lover A. P. Crittenden, was a sensation in San Francisco and across the nation. Newspapers carried the story of a woman strung along for years by a two-timing Gold Rush speculator, killing him in a supposed fit of madness in front of a crowd of stunned onlookers. San Francisco gained public attention in 1849 as a destination for people seeking to participate in the California gold strike. San Francisco benefited from gold fever and, over time, grew into a city regarded as a worthy rival to Boston and New York City. Krist does an excellent job of describing the relationship between Fair and Crittenden, and San Francisco's evolution. Readers looking for a good history read should seek "Trespassers at the Golden Gate."

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1870s San Francisco, Laura D. Fair publicly shot her married lover, A. P. Crittenden, claiming he ruined her and her daughter. Her sensational trial captivated the nation, exposing societal debates about women’s roles, family values, and gender expression. This book delves into the city’s wild frontier atmosphere, highlighting marginalized communities and featuring figures like Mark Twain amid the dramatic Laura Fair affair.

This is as much a story of San Francisco after the Gold Rush as it is about the Fair/Crittenden affair. It’s an interesting true crime story. There’s nothing lurid about the storytelling, yet Fair still comes out as more sympathetic than Crittenden. His threats and psychological abuse left her with few options. I appreciate how the author also highlighted the challenges experienced by people of color and gender-nonconforming people as the city grew.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took this up expecting a history of San Francisco, told in context of a signature event - not the worst way to present history, as it can make facts easily assimilable. And for a while, I thought that was what I was getting, with only a little more attention to the tale of star struck couple than I would have wished.

Perhaps I should have paid greater attention to the grisly subtitle, but I attributed that to the machinations of a misguided editor, eager to drum up sales and ignorant of the fact that the reading public (so I thought) had outgrown an appetite for salacious narratives. But, as I read further focus on the tale of 'true love, murder and madness' became ever stronger, finally replacing the history almost entirely.

As for the unhappy couple, they strike me as well short of unique enough to merit this much attention, the gentleman suffering from an addiction to risk, the lady worn down and vulnerable from a series of earlier disappointments.

[Anne-Marie McCartan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who knows and/or loves San Francisco, this historical account is for you. About half the book follows the murder mentioned in the title; the rest is a fascinating account of the early history of San Francisco -- from a gritty miners' town into the gilded age. Entreprenuer A.P. Crittenden, husband and father of a large brood of children, falls for the much-younger divorced and widowed Laura Fair. After stringing her along for six years that he is about to leave his wife ("as soon as my financial situation is settled"), she takes matters into her own hands. A jury will have to decide whether she was driven crazy by his broken promises, brought to desperation by the scandal, or high on medications. What exactly all this has to do with trespassers at the Golden Gate, I have no idea. But Krist keeps the story moving along and introduces us to any number of colorful characters that helped shape this jewel on the Pacific. Recommended for all history lovers.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is half about the history of Gold Rush San Francisco and half about a philanderer getting murdered. Tbh I wanted more murder, drama, intrigue, etc. There’s a lot of talk about the literary scene that I think didn’t really fit in, like Mark Twain what are you doing here? I don’t think it was relevant to the story, it wasn’t needed as background to how the press treated the “murderess”. I did appreciate that the author repeatedly brought up the double standard that existed, everybody knew this married man had a mistress but he was an “upstanding member of the community” so they all just ignored it while they talked shit about the woman #typical. It was more than I expected from a male author but maybe the bar is on the floor.

I cannot get the cell block tango out of my head cause this dude had a side piece he was telling he was gonna divorce his wife for SEVEN YEARS so yeah, he had it coming.