City of Secrets

Kelli Stanley
Works of: Fiction
Publisher(s): Thomas Dunne/Minotaur (Macmillan)

Pandora Blake wanted to be famous.

The blonde took a job at a peep show on Treasure Island for the 1940 World’s Fair. And on May 25th, opening day, the stage hands find her stabbed through the breast with a souvenir ice-pick, an anti-Semitic slur scrawled across her white skin …

Miranda Corbie—ex-escort, Spanish Civil War nurse, and now private detective in San Francisco—works for Sally Rand. Make that worked for Sally Rand. When the workers who find Pandora’s body call Miranda in for help, she gets involved, and the men who run the business of fun and fairs don’t like that. Seems that Miranda has a penchant for not cooperating … and for finding out the truth.

Set adrift from the island, Miranda has only a few days to devote to investigating Pandora’s brutal murder … until fate intervenes in the form of an official job. Her enemy—the rough Irish cop who beat her and tried to set her up in February—is arrested for the crime. And Miranda’s attorney wants to hire her … to find evidence that Gerald Duggan is innocent.

From dingy hotels in the shadow of San Francisco’s City Hall to the bright, sunny spa town of Calistoga nestled in the Napa Valley, Miranda’s follows the trail of a vicious murderer. Is he a member of one of the American fascist groups that support Nazi Germany? Is he the brutal animal trainer who likes to brand women? Or is it, after all, the cop who hates her—Gerald Duggan?

As another victim joins the list—another anti-Semitic slur drawn on her body—the swirl of madness threatens to swallow Miranda herself. Haunted by the memory of February and a stalker on her trail, she confronts terrorist threats, gangsters, and secrets from her own past … and faces a nightmare choice of life and death, alone and in the shadows.

Discover 1940 San Francisco—mysteries kept and innocence lost—in a harrowing CITY OF SECRETS …

“As she did in last year’s excellent CITY OF DRAGONS, Stanley richly explores San Francisco’s history, politics and culture during the pre-WWII days. She gracefully weaves in anti-Semitism, the rise of the American Nazi party, the World’s Fair and nude models into a cohesive plot, and brings fresh storytelling to CITY OF SECRETS … an outstanding addition to what will prove to be a superb series.”

Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“Miranda Corbie, the character at the heart of Kelli Stanley’s CITY OF SECRETS, combines the tropes of femme fatale and wisecracking private dick. She’s a hard drinking, chain smoking, spunky dame who would shoot me as soon as look at me for calling her spunky … Stanley has a distinctive writing style, conveying thoughts and ambience with poetic brush strokes.”

Hallie Ephron, Boston Globe