#32 Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear

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This story felt like a love letter to the old Wild Wild West show.  It doesn’t slavishly copy it but by the time I was finished reading it I wanted to watch those old shows again. Karen works in an upper class bordello saving her money for when she can open her own business of training horses, a skill she learned from her departed dad.  Things in town quickly get turned on its ear when they women of the house decide to shelter a cribhouse prostitute that was broken out and taken there by someone that has been harassing the owner of the cribhouse for a while now.  Soon after a black US Marshall comes to town following a serial killer of prostitute across the West. Turns out that there is a lot more to the story than this and even with several bad turns for Karen and her friends there is a happy ending.  The author’s note was very informative about sources she used for her world building.