Part of Series
The Curse-Maker is the sequel to he award-winning Nox Dormienda, the first book of the Roman noir series created by Kelli Stanley (City of Dragons). Wedding impeccably researched history to prose and themes reminiscent of classic hard-boiled writers, The Curse-Maker is a thrilling and suspenseful journey into a dark corner of Roman Britain you've never seen before. When Roman physician Arcturus and his stunning wife, Gwyna, arrive at Bath for a holiday, a dead body is floating in the sacred spring. It turns out that the murdered man is a curse-maker whose invocations actually come true, and as murder follows murder, it looks like there's now a curse on Arcturus. This is an exciting and exotic story of a spa town where people go to heal...only to wind up dead. And it takes the doctor-investigator on a dark road—into Roman cemeteries, silver mines, and underground water tunnels—to comprehend the twisted mind of a killer bent on revenge.
Author
An award-winning author of crime fiction, Kelli Stanley's first novel in the Miranda Corbie series, CITY OF DRAGONS, was met with overwhelming critical acclaim. It won the Macavity Award (Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award) and was a finalist for the prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Shamus Award. CITY OF SECRETS, her second novel in the series, won the Golden Nugget Award for best mystery set in California. CITY OF GHOSTS—the long-awaited third Miranda Corbie book—will be published August 5th, 2014. Stanley also writes a highly-praised series set in Roman Britain, the latest of which is THE CURSE-MAKER. Her debut novel, NOX DORMIENDA, won the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery of 2008. She makes her home in Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco, earned a Master's Degree in Classics, and loves jazz, old movies, fedoras, Art Deco and speakeasies. For more information about Kelli's books, please visit her website at http://www.kellistanley.com About CITY OF GHOSTS: June, 1940. Art. Spies. Murder. For Miranda Corbie, private investigator and erstwhile escort, there are debts to be paid and memories-long-suppressed and willfully forgotten-to be resurrected. Enter the U.S. State Department and the man who helped her get her license. A man she owes. And playing along may get her a ticket to Blitz-bombed England, if she survives ... Through sordid back alleys and art gallery halls, from drag dress nightclubs to a Nazi costume ball, Miranda's journey into fear takes her on the famed City of San Francisco streamliner and a ticket to Reno, Nevada, the Biggest Little City in the World ... where she finds herself framed for a murder she never anticipated. Miranda must learn the difference between reality and illusion, from despair to deceit and factual to fake, as she tries to get her life back ... and navigates a CITY OF GHOSTS. Miranda's back. And noir will never be the same.
