Publishers Marketplace: Kelli Stanley

About CITY OF DRAGONS:

Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Booklist Starred Review
Library Journal Starred Review

Indie Next Pick

RT Book Reviews Top Pick for February (4 1/2 Stars)

“It's Chinese New Year in 1940 San Francisco, and Chinatown is full of celebrants - including Miranda Corbie, a 33-year-old private eye with a colorful past and a hard-boiled point of view. Who better than the keen-eyed, caring Miranda to witness the final moments of a Japanese male teenager, beaten and shot, who drops to the pavement in the midst of the happy crowd?

So begins CITY OF DRAGONS, San Francisco author Kelli Stanley's terrific time-machine trip into the Bay Area's pre-Pearl Harbor past. Narrating the journey in bravura first-person style is Miranda herself: a wised-up tough gal whose prose sings with the cadences of early Hammett, middle Chandler, the outraged Walter Winchell and the young Herb Caen.

Stanley, winner (for a previous book set in ancient Rome) of the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery, knows how to bring the past to life: not only with a wealth of references to old buildings and politics and popular culture, but with thoughts and attitudes, dialogue and gestures, that seem both true to another time and as spontaneous as right this minute. CITY OF DRAGONS, with its brittle patter and its broken heart of gold, is a joy to read.”
Tom Nolan, San Francisco Chronicle

“Kelli Stanley's riveting new series about 1940s San Francisco private investigator Miranda Corbie revels in the character's uniqueness without resorting to cliches ... The gritty, hard-boiled CITY OF DRAGONS works as an insightful look at racisim and sexism. Stanley never misses a beat as she also shows San Francisco's hidden corners, seething emotions in the days before WWII. ... CITY OF DRAGONS is a wonderful start to what should be a long-running series.”
Oline Cogdill, Florida Sun Sentinel

“...a great start for what appears to be a fine series that will take us through the Second World War and onward.”
Margaret Cannon, Toronto Globe and Mail

“In this terrific book, Stanley puts all the right elements together to make the first in her new series a winner. Center stage is private investigator Miranda Corbie, a feisty gal with tons of attitude. She might be hard-boiled on the outside, but you never forget she's a lady. The noir atmosphere of 1940s San Francisco is so brilliantly recreated you'll swear you can hear the music, taste the food and feel the desperation of many that Miranda comes in contact with. Stanley sharpens anticipation for what comes next.”
Sandra Garcia-Myers, RT Book Review

“Beautifully imagined and beautifully written—this book does everything great fiction is supposed to.”
Lee Child

“CITY OF DRAGONS is big and ambitious, both reverent and original. Author Kelli Stanley has her eye on greatness.”
George Pelecanos

“A powerful crime novel ... Stanley’s dialogue bristles with attitude, the atmosphere is as thick as the bay fog, and her protagonist is a great new dame in crime fiction. A smart, stunning thriller.”
Linda Fairstein

"CITY OF DRAGONS is a stunning recreation of
time and place that I greatly enjoyed . . . as will everyone who
reads it."
Robert B. Parker

“Come … rush headlong into 1940’s San Francisco, wreathed in fog and Chinatown secrets.
A city just like Stanley’s noir heroine, Miranda Corbie, an ex-escort and current private eye, forever ‘a girl you didn’t take home to mother.’ But I’ll bet Raymond Chandler would have liked to get her number.
You’ll be asking yourself why reading CITY OF DRAGONS – a story as dark as black coffee – makes you feel so good. And it does.
Take a sip. I dare you.”
Louise Ure

"All I could think of as I watched Miranda Corbie, the red-headed babe and licensed private eye, fast-talk her way through this cool book was how much fun the author must have had immersing herself in the B-movie world she's so lovingly recreated. Readers will have fun, too."
Otto Penzler, ed., Best American Noir Stories of the Century

“Kelli Stanley’s CITY OF DRAGONS blew me to ribbons.
From the opening chapter, we’re rooting for Miranda, a marvelous, feisty, compassionate heroine who is my favourite P.I. to come down the mean streets in oh, so long.
Superb characterisations … and a story to make you weep. Fathers will never seem quite the same again. From the opening quote by Cornell Woolrich, we’re off and gasping, and not just from the lovely evocations of another era of Chesterfields.
Polish up the Shamus, I know where it’s headed this year.”
Ken Bruen

“Evocative and taut, Kelli Stanley’s CITY OF DRAGONS bursts with dark atmosphere.
Fans of Raymond Chandler and Megan Abbott should add Stanley to their list of must-read authors.”
Tasha Alexander

"In Kelli Stanley’s deft, sure hands, the classic noir form is transformed: CITY OF DRAGONS is imbued with the colors, sounds, emotions and excitement of true history.
She blends the urgent fears of a world on the brink of a world-shattering war with the gritty realities of the San Francisco streets: exploitation, racial prejudice, and the tawdry sins of everyday criminals.
Stanley’s Miranda Corbie is tougher than tough, more of a hero than any man within the tantalizing scent of her ubiquitous Chesterfields.
CITY OF DRAGONS is an explosive, important book—and the best part is an ending that will blow you away."
Laura Benedict

"Kelli Stanley manages to achieve some very difficult things in CITY OF DRAGONS: recreating time and place powerfully but without excessive romanticizing, honoring the noir classics without losing any sense of originality, and capturing the events and tensions of the world without losing the story along the way. It takes a very skilled writer to achieve something like this.
Written in a prose style that's simultaneously staccato and smooth, CITY OF DRAGONS is a compelling and powerful novel."
Michael Koryta

“Kelli Stanley’s CITY OF DRAGONS is stunning, pitch-perfect noir. She conjures forth a lost, poignant, and darkly luminous San Francisco in which Hammett - and LA’s Chandler - would feel immediately at home.”
Cornelia Read

“Kelli Stanley’s haunting narrative voice seduces us into the gritty, racist, and somehow gorgeous CITY OF DRAGONS that is 1940 San Francisco.
I wondered how the scope of the crime could possibly be big enough to match the voice, the complex characters, and the powerful setting. And yet Stanley’s ending paid off perfectly.
This is one of my favorite novels of all time.
Watch out, Sam Spade, Miranda Corbie is a woman hardboiled and feminine enough to keep you in line!”
Rebecca Cantrell

About NOX DORMIENDA:

"From first page to finis, NOX DORMIENDA by Kelli Stanley is chock full of chills, thrills, and breath-taking adventure. Fueled by fascinating characters and rich details from Londinium in 83 A.D., this unforgettable tale brings the past eerily alive while leaving you hungering for the next book in what surely will be an exciting series. Stanley is a terrific writer."
Gayle Lynds

In NOX DORMIENDA, Kelli Stanley has created a startling new genre of mystery: the Roman noir. Written in a fresh and uncompromising voice, here is a novel as evocative of ancient times as it is masterful in crafting a mystery as entangled and ingenious as any modern story.
I look forward to vanishing again into the world she has created. Don't miss your chance to do the same.
James Rollins

… takes the reader on a colorful tour of this singular culture high and low, from jails and brothels to the corridors of power. First-timer Stanley is sure-footed and enthusiastic about history … and crafts a satisfyingly intricate puzzle …
Kirkus

There's lots of action, with threads involving Arcturus' servant, the spy's reluctant fiancee, a badly run brothel and the secret lives of those who follow the "old" (Druidic) religion. There's also plenty of blood, cruelty and political machination in this well-done story that will keep the reader guessing for many chapters.
Roberta Alexander, Contra Costa Times/San Jose Mercury News

Phillip Marlowe and John Rebus have a new cousin ... who speaks Latin.
John Leech, Mystery News