City of Secrets

Working Stiffs welcomes back our good friend, Kelli Stanley!

by Kelli Stanley

First, I want to express my appreciation to Joyce, Bente (who is in all of my Miranda books!), Annette, Paula and all my friends at Working Stiffs for letting me hang out! You guys rock, and I consider myself lucky to get to spend some time with you! :)

I’m actually just popping in between different weeks of a book tour ... the CITY OF SECRETS book tour, as a matter of fact. CITY OF SECRETS is the second Miranda Corbie book (following CITY OF DRAGONS, which I’m thrilled to say won a Macavity Award at Bouchercon last month!) We’re continuing to celebrate while traveling, and next week I’ll be in various cool places from Scottsdale to Thousand Oaks, California.

So, the title of my newest book begs the question: what kind of secrets? San Francisco secrets? Secrets about Miranda Corbie, the broken idealist and hardboiled PI of the series? Or secrets about 1940 and the American past that we didn’t learn in high school history books ...

The answer is all of the above.

Miranda Corbie is working the opening day of the second  San Francisco World’s Fair, held on beautiful Treasure Island in the middle of the Bay. Stage hands find her in front of Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch, where she works security, protecting the girls behind the glass wall from everything other than eyes ... to use those, you pay a quarter. Use anything else and you have to deal with Miranda.

Shaking in shock and horror, the stage hands from Artists and Models—another peep show near Sally’s, in which young women posed “tastefully” for people with cameras or sketch pads, in pseudo-artist model style—inform Miranda that the opening act, a young blonde named Pandora Blake, seems to be ... dead. Miranda finds the young girl with a long, deep stab wound, the kind made by an ice pick. Blood trickles slowly down her white skin. And on her stomach, written in blood, is a word: an anti-Semitic epithet.

Miranda is plunged into a secret San Francisco that she—and many people today—didn’t know existed. A San Francisco in which an organization of domestic terrorists and racists can meet in a bar off Union Square, express their sympathies for Hitler and hatred for Roosevelt and plot violence against the government.

The fact is, San Francisco and the West Coast were home to many such groups in the 30s and early 40s. 

Long before “right-wing militia” became a term in the 70s and 80s—long before Timothy McVeigh was born—there were people who believed the United States was becoming degenerate, too big, too encompassing, and too tolerant. That the government was far too liberal. That the dictatorships and totalitarian regimes were on the right track, and that Adolf Hitler was a man to admire.

And they were willing to back up their beliefs with violence.

These groups weren’t Nazis. They considered themselves patriotic Americans, with names like Defenders of the Christian Faith or The Musketeers ... which is the group Miranda investigates.

And so she does, uncovering more secrets. Secrets about eugenics, and the dangers of California’s sterilization laws ... which in turn inspired Hitler. Secrets about the bucolic and beautiful Napa Valley, and the sleep little town of Calistoga, where claims of rejuvenation and health were made for the mud baths and spa treatments at Nance’s Sanitarium. And even secrets about herself, as echoes of the past reverberate unexpectedly through her investigation of two murders.

The background is a world at war. Belgium falls and France is falling. And through it all, Miranda’s at war herself, chasing shadows, leafing through the forgotten belongings of a dead girl, playing a mean game of roulette, and ultimately facing her darkest decision while on the track of a vicious, anti-Semitic killer.

Real people make appearances in CITY OF SECRETS ... Sally Rand has a cameo in chapter one, and threatened to walk away with the entire book. The second real person is a surprise  (no spoilers here). The settings are real—from Nance’s to the Club Moderne to a nightmarish, castle-like mansion in the Napa Valley.

It’s a frightening, dark and thrilling noir, and the events of CITY OF SECRETS will reverberate through future books. What isn’t a secret is how much I love to write this series, and how I hope to continue writing Miranda forever.

So, Working Stiffs ... what I want to know is this: have you uncovered any secrets you want to share? Or do you have any questions you want to ask? Let’s play a blog version of truth or dare, and let ‘er rip! :)

Knock Wood

Working Stiffs welcomes back the super-fabulous Kelli Stanley! 

Knock Wood

by Kelli Stanley

 

I’m absolutely thrilled to kick off my new release celebration with my favorite bunch of working stiffs! Thank you all for having me over, and I only wish I could have brought an actual hostess gift rather than the virtual cheese dip on the coffee table.

 
I thought I’d talk about a subject that most people don’t talk about often enough, mainly because, well, they’re afraid it’ll bring bad luck.

We’re talking superstition, here. You know, knock wood, jinxes, ladders, black cats, and the rest of it. It’s kind of thematic—my next “Roman noir”, THE CURSE-MAKER, releases on February 1st , and, as you might expect, it deals with curses (and ghosts and necromancy and other cool stuff).

I’ve always been interested in why we perform the rituals we do, and way back in yesteryear when I was still getting my Master’s in Classics, I loved diving into studies of ancient cults and magic and … cursing. No, not that kind, though I had plenty of practice as a student.

Curses are an ancient form of bribery/magic, and their basic purpose—just like our knocking wood—is to control the unknown. In this case, through bribing a god or goddess or spirit to arrange things for you—whether it’s the horse in the third race or the sexy handyman down the street (that’s a plug for Derek, Jennie’s handyman in her Avery series—very handy and very sexy!) —we’re calling on supernatural aid to give us what we most desire or avert what we most fear.

Curses were almost always illegal in most places … but not in Aquae Sulis (Bath) in Roman Britain. Here, these lead tablets—they were usually lead tablets folded up and/or stabbed through with a nail in order to “fix” the spell, hence the Latin name defixiones—were legal and apparently sanctioned by the temple of the leading goddess herself.  Sulis was the reigning queen of the magic waters of Aquae Sulis (i.e. “Waters of Sulis”) which reputedly had magical powers of healing. See, Bath—before Jane Austen—was still a snooty spa town.

Sulis was the local Celtic goddess all right, but the Romans identified her with Minerva, so she’s usually referred to as “Sulis-Minerva” … though we don’t really know what she called herself. We don’t even know for sure if she was a she, because the only surviving relief sculpture from her temple clearly shows a bearded figure.

Anyway—she, he, or bearded lady—presided over a sacred spring of this healing water (which you can still experience today, by the way). The hopeful and the desperate would throw curses into the spring, and most had something to do with theft, i.e. “May the person who stole my bath slippers, be he man or woman, slave or free, be unable to use the bathroom and feel like his bowels are on fire until the slippers are returned.”

In other words, the curses, in a very unique and bizarre way, were a sort of social police network. They made victims of theft feel better, and—possibly—they may have worked. I mean, if you stole someone’s bath slippers, and you knew about this curse, wouldn’t you return them?

One of the curse-makers in THE CURSE-MAKER explains how and why it all works to Arcturus, my protagonist, but please don’t try it at home … these spells persisted in cultures for thousands of years, and, well ... color me superstitious.

Arcturus is there on a honeymoon of sorts, and immediately gets drafted into a murder investigation. One of the curse-makers is found floating in the Sacred Spring, and he’s not taking a bath. The thing is … this curse-maker’s curses had a reputation.

They came true.

I’ll leave you with that, and one quick question: what’s your own favorite superstition? Rabbit’s foot? Ladders? Or Knock wood?

She Works Hard For The Money

Working Stiffs welcomes back our good friend Kelli Stanley.

She Works Hard For The Money

by Kelli Stanley

Hi, everybody! It’s wonderful to be back among my Working Stiffs buddies, stretching my legs in front of the electric fireplace in Annette’s RV. ;) Ha! I loved that post … I remember when camping meant camping, and don’t talk to me unless you’re willing to compare mosquito bites. ;)


Seriously, thank you all so much for having me over! Blog tours are not only fun visitin’ time, but one of the few occasions when authors get to pretend we’re famous and making the rounds of talk shows to talk about our next vehicle. ;) In my case, of course, it’s CITY OF DRAGONS—my second novel, first in a new series, and Bente’s god-child, because she let me borrow her (real) name for a character--Bente Gallagher, an old friend of Miranda Corbie, my PI protagonist. Cool, huh? But I owe the inspiration for the character completely to Jennie. When I heard her real name, I *knew* my Bente—she sprang fully formed.

In my case, I’m following up a blog tour at some of my favorite hang-outs with a face-to-face tour on the West Coast. And I’m trying to figure out what sections of the book to read. I confess that I like reading—I was a Drama major, after all—but CoD has a lot of dialog. What do you guys think? Do you like dialog scenes read aloud or straight prose? Any preferences? Any dislikes?

I’m kind of nervous, as this is my first chance to actually see my book in a lot of stores-- NOX was distribution-challenged. So I’ll be hoofing it like a chorus girl, up and down the coast, talking about 1940 San Francisco and noir and Chinatown and … oh, yeah. Probably the point I’ll get questioned on the most: Miranda was an escort before she earned her PI license.

“Escort” means a lot of things to a lot of people. Most people assume it means she was a prostitute. Some have labeled her a call-girl. I’ve already been asked “Did she or didn’t she?” and the book’s not out until February 2nd …

The truth is that Miranda is an extraordinarily complex woman. I honestly don’t feel like she’s a creation at all—more like a writing partner. She’s someone I know well, but even I don’t know all the answers.

By the time CITY OF DRAGONS opens in February, 1940, she’s already been through:

A rough childhood. The Jazz Age and bootleg gin and women’s emancipation. The Great Depression. Teaching English to dirt poor dirt farmers. Falling deeply, deeply, deeply in love and volunteering as a nurse in the Spanish Civil War. Losing her lover—and herself.

Then there’s the escort experience, working for Burnett, a sleazy detective and her old boss … and finally, the Miranda of CITY OF DRAGONS.

You only get bits and pieces of her backstory, and that’s as it should be. I’m hoping to write about Miranda for a long, long time, and I’ve got some prequels in mind (one is already going to be published—a short story called “Children’s Day”, set almost a year earlier than CITY OF DRAGONS. It’s proud to be included in the next ITW anthology, FIRST THRILLS: High-Octane Stories from the Hottest Thriller Authors—releasing June 22 from Forge).

So what can I tell you about Miranda? She’s private. She means a lot to me. And I don’t violate her confidences. But I know this: that as a thirty-three year old woman in 1940, she, too, is a working stiff. And whatever she did, she worked damn hard for the money.

Thanks for reading, guys—and thanks again for having me on Working Stiffs!

CITY OF DRAGONS will be released from Thomas Dunne/Minotaur on February 2nd. You can order your copy here.

Come Fly With Me!

Working Stiffs welcomes the wonderful Kelli Stanley as our guest today!


by Kelli Stanley

In the inimitable words of Frank Sinatra, I’m calling on all working stiffs to “come fly with me” and celebrate!What, you may rightly ask, has triggered this exuberance? Am I enjoying an early cocktail? Had one too many pieces of dark chocolate? Crazy?

No on the first two, and I’m not significantly more insane than I used to be. I’m celebrating a number of things with today’s post, and specifically a common, computerized, ugly little thing called a … barcode. (No, I don’t mean the kind that says you always tip the mixologist.)

Today I received the ISBN number for my next book, CITY OF DRAGONS. And this, my friends, is a small symbol of a dream come true. Here—I’ll start at the beginning.

Way back when (it seems a lot longer than two and a half years ago)—January 17, 2007, to be exact—I opened my email and found that NOX DORMIENDA was accepted for publication. I’ve loved every minute of the journey with Five Star, the small publisher that took a big risk on an odd historical noir with a Latin title.

Since publication in July of last year, NOX had the amazing honor of winning the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award this March and is currently nominated for a Macavity (Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery). I never thought this would happen or could happen. I am blessed beyond my ability to describe it.

And … here’s the “come fly with me” part … the Italian rights have been sold. My “Roman noir”, set in first-century Roman Britain, will actually be available for sale (as a mass-market paperback) in Rome!

So what does this have to do with a barcode? Well, here’s the dream come true part: I sold a two-book series to Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s back in January. Y’ see, my life goal—my driving desire, my obsession, if you will—is to be able to write full-time. Not live luxuriously, of course—but to survive with a modest income from writing fiction. I’ve got a lot of books inside of me—contemporary stand-alones, series, thrillers—waiting to come out.

I work pretty much around the clock, hoping to attain this someday. And because I didn’t want to get typed as a solely “Roman” writer—and because I knew I had little chance of getting NOX and its sequels picked up by a major publisher—I pursued another love of my writing life and created CITY OF DRAGONS … a dark novel of 1940 San Francisco.

The protagonist is Miranda Corbie—a femme fatale in the hero’s role. She’s a PI. A former Spanish Civil War nurse. And an ex-escort.

The novel opens in Chinatown, with a murder no one wants solved. A Japanese-American teenager is shot to death during a festival for Chinese war relief. The Sino-Japanese War is still raging, three years after the Rape of Nanking. So chalk up the murder to racial hatred, the cops say. Let it ride.

Miranda doesn’t. And that’s CITY OF DRAGONS. It’s coming out next February, hopefully in time for Chinese New Year and the 80th Anniversary of the publication of The Maltese Falcon.

Because I’ve been lucky enough to sell CITY OF DRAGONS and its sequel to a major publisher, I now have an actual shot at—eventually—attaining my end game goal: to write full-time.I’ve got a long way to go, of course … but in between all the late nights and missed phone calls and skipped TV shows—the thrown-together meals and the computer eye strain that is all part of being a working writer and a working stiff—I celebrate. And today, I’m celebrating my barcode, because that makes it all the more real … and all the more possible.

So … couple of questions for you, and I hope you’ll help me throw an online party, right here and now! One, if you could sell foreign rights anywhere in the world (and with all money being equal)—what language would you want your book in and why?

And two—what “little” things represent big things in your experience? ISBNs?