title: Frog Music
author:  Emma Donoghue 
description: *Starred Review* Donoghue flawlessly combines literary eloquence and vigorous plotting in her first full-fledged mystery, a work as original and multifaceted as its young murder victim. During the scorching summer of 1876, Jenny Bonnet, an enigmatic cross-dressing bicyclist who traps frogs for San Franciscos restaurants, meets her death in a railroad saloon on the citys outskirts. Exotic dancer Blanche Beunon, a French immigrant living in Chinatown, thinks she knows who shot her friend and why, but has no leverage to prove it and doesnt know if she herself was the intended target. A compulsive pleasure-seeker estranged from her fancy man, Blanche searches desperately for her missing son while pursuing justice for Jenny, but finds her two goals sit in conflict. In language spiced with musical interludes and raunchy French slang, Donoghue brings to teeming life the nasty, naughty side of this ethnically diverse metropolis, with its brothels, gaming halls, smallpox-infested boardinghouses, and rampant child abuse. Most of her seedy, damaged characters really lived, and she not only posits a clever solution to a historical crime that was never adequately solved but also crafts around Blanche and Jenny an engrossing and suspenseful tale about moral growth, unlikely friendship, and breaking free from the past. --Sarah Johnson
  						    	
  						        	--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
zlib_text: FROG  
  MUSIC
  
  A Novel  
    
  
  EMMA DONOGHUE  
    
    
    
    
    
  
  ![](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Dedication](Frog_Music_split_002.html#filepos957)
  
  For Margaret Lonergan,  
  friend and muse for a quarter of a century
  
  
  
  
  
  CONTENTS
  
  [Dedication](Frog_Music_split_001.html#filepos615)
  
  [I Darlin’](Frog_Music_split_003.html#filepos2663)
  
  [II I Have Got the Blues](Frog_Music_split_004.html#filepos91868)
  
  [III There’s the City](Frog_Music_split_005.html#filepos197524)
  
  [IV Somebody’s Watching](Frog_Music_split_006.html#filepos287352)
  
  [V Vive la Rose](Frog_Music_split_007.html#filepos439345)
  
  [VI I Hardly Knew Ye](Frog_Music_split_008.html#filepos551255)
  
  [VII Bang Away](Frog_Music_split_009.html#filepos643625)
  
  [VIII When the Train Comes Along](Frog_Music_split_010.html#filepos766790)
  
  > > [Afterword](Frog_Music_split_011.html#filepos871406)
  
  > > [Song Notes](Frog_Music_split_012.html#filepos892108)
  
  > > [Glossary of French](Frog_Music_split_013.html#filepos917705)
  
  > > [About the Author](Frog_Music_