THE 9 DARK HOURS is a delightful mystery set in San Francisco circa 1940. Cameron Ferris, fresh from the fertile valleys of Oregon, lands a joba regrettably boring jobas a file clerk in a warehouse. Though she finds little excitement in keeping the accounts straight, the job enables her to leave her bucolic, snail's pace past for the promise of adventure in the city of adventure: San Francisco. The adventure she finds, though, is surprisingly scary and off-kilter. Returning to her apartment one afternoon, she finds a strange man occupying her flat. All her things are goneher clothes, her furniture. The man claims to be the rightful occupant, and the landlady backs him up. All evidence of her existence has been wiped clean.

The encounter is absolutely unnerving, but rather than wilt and slink back to Oregon, she shows some real backbone and stands up to the wall of illusion. Once the wall crumbles, she finds herself embroiled in an even greater mystery that ends in a mad hunt for baby-nappers. The girl from Oregon becomes the missing baby's only hope.