She conjures up a time far removed from our own and a place that was once real and is forever exotic. Stanley's imagination, on the other hand, is anything but inferior. By page nine, you will be so thoroughly immersed in the San Francisco of the mid-20th century that your contemporary surroundings will seem to be the product of an inferior imagination.

Be warned: when you open the book and begin reading the first page, you are leaving the 21st century and wherever you happen to be behind. It is still 1940, the setting is still San Francisco, and there is yet another celebration taking place: the beginning of the second season of the Golden Gate International Exposition. With a strong female protagonist more steel than silk and a mystery that will grip you until the last page, this sequel to the critically-acclaimed City of Dragons will appeal to fans of noir and historical mysteries.ĬITY OF SECRETS is the second of Kelli Stanley's award-winning Miranda Corbie novels, which begins within a few months after CITY OF DRAGONS ends. When Pandora Blake is murdered at San Francisco's 1940 World Fair and her body marked with an anti-Semitic slur, Miranda is soon entangled in a web of deceit and betrayal that is only overshadowed by the threat of impending war. 'Author Kelli Stanley has her eye on greatness.' - George Pelecanos

|a Miranda Corbie investigates the hate-crime murder of Pandora Blake during San Francisco's 1940 World's Fair, a case that subjects her to a devastating web of deceit and betrayal.

|a New York : |b Minotaur Books, |c 2011.

City of Secrets by Kelli Stanley