Miranda Corbie has a complicated backstory, ex-nurse, ex-escort, and current private eye. What kind of historical predecessors does she have?

 Miranda's predecessors are many, in terms of her courage and her toughness. Her generation was that of Getrude Ederle and Amelia Earhart and Martha Gellhorn, after all! But she was conceived partly as a response to the inherent misogyny of the classic noir, a response to the image of the wicked and beautiful femme fatale who tended to be the strongest woman in a book or film. With Miranda, you're looking at a woman who knows how to use sex--as all great femme fatales do--yet she's the hero, the PI. She also reflects some of the idealism of that generation. The hardest cynics are always the broken idealists, and the Great Depression and failure of the democratic political systems in Europe broke quite a few.

The historical detail is astounding. How did you do your research?

Thanks, Rebecca--coming from the author of A Trace of Smoke, that means a lot!  I've always felt at home in this era--in some ways, I've immersed myself in it since I was a kid, through film and other popular culture. The late '30s and early '40s feels like home to me. That said, I spent a great deal of time going through newspapers and magazines. I own nearly every Life magazine published weekly in '39 and '40. I looked at a lot of photos, in books and in our San Francisco Public Library's special collections, listened to radio programs, FDR speeches, all kinds of things.

I'm also inspired by ephemera--you know, the bits and bobs from scrapbooks, mementos of the time--everything from matchbooks from the Club Moderne to menus from the Pig n' Whistle. One of my prize possessions is a 1940 San Francisco phone book, and that enabled me to use actual phone numbers of the real businesses in the novel.

What scraps of Miranda's world did you still find in ours?

Fortunately, there are remnants of Art Deco San Francisco still around, other than the Golden Gate Bridge, of course ... Lotta's Fountain is still a landmark, the Pickwick Hotel and the St. Francis and Fisherman's Wharf ... all still here. Chinatown has changed, but the buildings are some of the oldest in the City, and you can easily glimpse the 1940 district, and even older layers. I've added an interactive Google map to my website, so readers can explore Miranda's city alongside the contemporary San Francisco. And of course, I'm thrilled that we're hosting Bouchercon this year!

What's next for Miranda?

I'm working on the second novel, which is due this summer, and is tentatively titled Country of Spiders. It takes place about three months after City of Dragons, right before the fall of France ... and the 1940 reopening of one of the last great World's Fairs, the Golden Gate International Exposition, where Miranda works during the season.

In June, "Children's Day"--a short story prequel to City of Dragons--will be out in the ITW anthology First Thrills ... along with a short story by one Rebecca Cantrell, right? So it's a busy year for Miranda.

What's next for Kelli Stanley?

Well, I've achieved the goal of having two series with my wonderful editor at Thomas Dunne/Minotaur. The long-awaited sequel to my debut novel Nox Dormienda--entitled Cursed--will be out either at the end of 2010 or early 2011. If things go well, my dream is to be able to leave my day job and write more books! I've got a stand-alone thriller set in Humboldt County that's rolling around in my head, as well as ambitions to create a graphic novel. It all depends on how things go in 2010.

What's the last book you read, the book you are currently reading, and the next book on your list? What's the one book you would re-read if you had time?

I'm currently reading Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front. Before that, I was reading Byline: Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades. Up next is a break from the research and a very talented friend's new book in galley form: A Cutthroat Business by Bente Gallagher, aka Jennie Bentley. Jennie's great, and I can't wait to dig in!

As for what I'd re-read ... probably Chandler's The Long Goodbye ... it turned 56 this past autumn, and only gets better with age.

Rebecca Cantrell sold her house, quit her high tech job, and moved to Hawaii to write a novel. Her first novel, A TRACE OF SMOKE, starts a mystery series set in Berlin in the 1930s. It will be released in May 2009. As of this writing, she lives in Hawaii with her husband and son.