So after reading two books, one based mostly in New York and the other located in the mind of a crazy person during my quest to read 10 books this year, I went to my local independent book store (duh, it is San Francisco) to pick up a novel based in this fine city by the bay.
Now I suppose I should have known -- the author spells her name with an "i" at the end of her name to make an "e" sound.
Needless to say, City of Dragons was not my favorite. In fact I would go so far to call it bad; about three fifths of the book were just alright, one fifth kept me reading due to wanting to know what would happen in this trite excuse of a murder mystery, and the final fifth was painfully overwritten, completely unnecessary, quasi-poetry based prose, that did nothing to further the story and minimally informed the character development.
If you do choose to read this please know you are getting into a somewhat predictable yet completely unfeasible story based on the era in which it is set. The late 1930s and 1940s were not a time of race interaction, feminist empowerment, or any of the other societal commentaries attempted in this book.
One thing I will give the story was that I knew where things were taking place as I read the story. And that is fun.
So, yeah. Don't read this one. But I will say, if Volume 2 of the Miranda Corbie Mystery series was sitting on my book stand and I wasn't reading anything else, I would give Kelli Stanley about 50 pages to get my attention.
1 out of 5 stars
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