Formerly the San Diego Trust & Savings Building, this is now a Marriott Hotel. I'm not certain but I believe this is the likely setting for the "Bank of America" building in which Quincy Day had her sinister "Night & Day Agency" in Calamity Fair. Max Thursday said the building "towered over downtown." It doesn't tower over downtown anymore, and in fact, it didn't then either. Across the street (to the right of where I was standing when taking the picture) is the John D. Spreckels Building, which is almost as tall.

Thursday mentions that his own office was just a block away.

The Night & Day Agency was on the sixth floor.

And speaking of the Spreckels Building, here it is. I love buildings like this with windows that actually open.

Thursday's friend and fellow investigator, John D. Meier had his Insurance Claims Investigations office in this building. Thursday consulted him for information on Quincy Day.

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This is the old police station, complete with palm trees. It appears in all the Max Thursday novels. It's now pretty much abandoned and there's frequent discussion about what to do with it. I believe the parking lot is used by people who work at nearby Seaport Village.

My father used to be a dispatcher for the San Diego Police Department and I remember visiting this building with him back in the 1970's when it was still in use.

Lieutenant Austin Clapp's office was just to the right of the entrance. I'd guess it would be where the window is in front of the pickup truck near the right side of this photo.

Over the front entrance was the upthrust masonry of a campanile and its oddly contrasting neon sign that said POLICE. -- Murder Charge

As police stations go, this is an odd one: it has a large courtyard in the middle of it. This is view of the now-barricaded front entrance of the police station showing the inner courtyard.

It was a single story of tan stucco with a red tile roof, rambling in hacienda style around a large patio -- Murder Charge

The police station again, this time dwarfed by a hotel behind it. This photo was taken from across Harbor Drive.

In the heart of what is now the Gaslamp District is what's left of the tiny Aztec Theater. This is where Thursday had a meeting with Austin Clapp while going undercover in Murder Charge. It has been gutted and is now an Urban Outfitters store.

Next to the corner of Fifth and G, the Aztec Theater glowed between a Money To Loan and the Real Texas Chili House. -- Murder Charge

True crime aside
In late 1946 this was an all-night theater, where a person low on funds could buy a ticket and spend the night (I guess movies were quieter back then). One such person was Elizabeth Short, better known by her posthumous nickname, the Black Dahlia. A female employee took pity on her and invited her to stay with her family in Pacific Beach. Miss Short stayed until she'd worn out her welcome and then returned to Los Angeles where she met up with the wrong man and wound up in two pieces in an empty LA lot.

Still in the Gaslamp district, we're on Island looking across Fifth Avenue towards Fourth. This is near where Max Thursday is kidnapped in the early hours of the morning in Guilty Bystander. He's led here by a treacherous female and forced into a truck near Fourth Avenue.

We're looking down Cave Street in La Jolla towards a cliff just beyond the tree in the center of the photograph. In Fatal Step a truck crashes through the fence and goes off the cliff into an inlet beyond. Inside is the body of a man Max suspects of an earlier murder.

And here's the inlet in question. In the novel it's called "Devil's Slide" though I don't know if it's really called that. Out of view towards us is a small and very rocky beach. Thursday says the cliffs are fifty yards high, though I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. He also says there's a trail in the cliff that leads down to the beach, but I couldn't find one. Poetic license, I guess.

Each vicious roller drove the half-clad divers toward the slice of beach and broke high over the overturned truck, spinning the helpless wheels -- Fatal Step

Here's another picture of the inlet (well, one wall of it), this one from the left side. Cave Street is out of frame the right (and it passes behind where I was standing when taking this picture). The shoreline in the distance is known as La Jolla Shores.

In Murder Charge this hotel is called "The Manor." Mobster Harry Blue is shot when emerging from the front door. He survives, but is held incognito by the police while Max takes over mobster Harry Blue's room while attempting to impersonate him.

Built in 1946, and in it's early days called "Imig Manor" after it's builder, Larry Imig, it's more commonly known today as the Lafayette Hotel. It was once popular with movie stars and other Hollywood royalty. Its swimming pool was designed by movie-Tarzan Johnny Weismuller, and Bob Hope was its first guest. It has fallen on harder times since then. Unfortunately, it appears that it's going to be torn down and replaced with condominiums.

With its huge portico supported by tall white pillars, it might have been Hollywood's idea of a southern plantation house. -- Murder Charge

Attached to The Manor and in the lower floor in this shot is the Mississippi Room, which plays a small role in the events in Murder Charge. It really was called (then and now) "The Mississippi Room." I'm surprised that Wade Miller didn't get sued.

..the sedan idled and the pair waited. The shotgun waited. They were parked at the west end of the hotel, by the red canvas marquee of the Mississippi Room -- Murder Charge

This is a small "village" of artists in the eastern portion of Balboa Park. It's very near the entrance to the San Diego Zoo. As the name indicates, it's supposed to be Spanish, so the gazebo seems somewhat out of place. Miller calls it the "Spanish Art Village." Today it's known as the "Spanish Village Art Center."

In Uneasy Street, Lucian Pryor has a studio here, and Max encounters him several times here along with various members of an international gang of thieves, including the beautiful and mysterious April Ames. Max usually visits it after dark, and Wade Miller portrays it as rather a lonely and forbidding place.

Built during the second exposition as a midway, the ring of heterogeneous buildings had been left standing to house a small colony of painters, musicians, sculptors, writers. -- Uneasy Street

Another shot of the Spanish Village Art Center.

As Miller notes, this was built for the 1935-36 California-Pacific International Exposition. In the pictures that I've seen from that time it looks rather different, but I don't know how much it has changed or when.

By the way, there had been a previous expo on the same site back in 1915. Many of the buildings in the park had been built then and still dominate it.

And here's a shot of a studio very much like the one that Pryor might have rented. Today in the real world, it seems pleasant and welcoming, but in Uneasy Street it's not safe to spend much time here.

I can't locate it precisely, but this is roughly where the Finch mansion is supposed to be in Uneasy Street. The cliffs here are about one hundred feet high, even if they don't look it in the photo.

In the novel, the mansion is built right up against the cliff edge. In reality, that wouldn't be wise. The cliffs are sandstone and erosion is a constant problem.

These days, this area is popular with surfers.

Thursday made a friendly grin and backed up two paces to the stone balustrade, intending to sit on top of it. He changed his mind. On all sides the wall ran along the very edge of the cliffs. Below was nothing for a hundred feet--then the black points of rocks and the white points of waves. -- Uneasy Street