Shrouded in Mysteries

Prior Convictions

by Lia Matera (Simon & Schuster, 1991)

"In most San Francisco neighborhoods there's no trace of the earthquake. From the Golden Gate Bridge you can see squashed blocks of the Marina district (including a house Julian Warneke had bequeathed my mother), South of Market you occasionally see a rubbly hole, as if a rowhouse had been teleported into space. A few Civic Center buildings are still eye-patched with plywood. And because they closed the Embarcadero Freeway, traffic resembles the tenth circle of hell."