A Silver Hammer

About the Book

Set in San Francisco and Sacramento, this is the story of America's first Transcontinenal Railroad. The players are The Central Pacific, The Big Four and the tens of thousands who built the roads, laid the rails, drove the spikes and crossed the Sierra Nevada into Utah—a task everyone said was impossible.

In 1865, newlywed Ian Hamilton leaves the North of England for California where his uncle, Geddes MacCallum, consulting engineer to the Central Pacific Railroad, has offers him a job. Wife Gwen is to follow when their child is born.

Though Gwen is reluctant, she makes the trip with her cousins, the Marsdens. En route they endure unspeakable ordeals. Once in San Francisco, Gwen sees little of Ian. He is following his passions—wherever the railroad is being built, over vast mountain ranges, across desert wastes and, soon, into the arms of Mai Ping, the beautiful daughter of MacCallum's closest confidant, Feng Li.

Though Gwen nows nothing specific, she senses trouble. Engineer MacCallum is unwillingly complicit with Ian's deception because he will allow nothing to interfere with the completion of the railroad.

Gwen pits her will against Ian's infatuation with hauling the railroad to its final destination. She is further distressed as she observes the life of her cousin, Dolly Marsden, who appears to achieve everything that eludes Gwen at every turn. As she sees it, the blame for all her anguish and uncertainty lies with her rival for Ian's affection, the railroad. She remains entirely ignorant of his affair with Mai Ping.

Torn between the two women, Ian is like a leaf in a Spring freshet, whirled about by eddies over which he seems to have no control. His work on the Central Pacific is his only refuge from the increasing confusion of his personal life.

About the Author

Arline Potter, New York-born and bred, arrived in California in the early 80s. A cultural historian in her past life, it was natural that two of her books should focus on California and some of the mega forces driving its population.

Though the building of the transcontinental railroad was long in the past, the spirit of those events haunt us today. "One senses those forces not so much as history, rather as strands in the very fabric of one's daily life. Every time I cross the Sierra, I can almost see the old towns and hear the ring of picks and hammers."

She lives in Coastal California's Monterey County, overlooking a picturesque valley knowing that soon the rural flavor which enchants her may be lost to the encroachment of the silicon hoards looming over the horizon.

She shares her life with her husband; all the children are grown and gone. At this point, she claims to need neither cats nor dogs.

She is currently working on a mystery story set in her native New York City.