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The Reckoning book cover
The Reckoning
2026
First Published
3.56
Average Rating
320
Number of Pages

SHE KILLED A MAN. HE DESERVED IT. BUT JUSTICE ISN’T YET DONE. First in an explosive new thriller series set in the eighties from the author of the critically acclaimed Miranda Corbie series introduces the fierce feminist Renata Drake—on the run from the FBI for the execution-style murder of her little sister’s killer. “**Vivid and haunting. I’m eager to hear more from the tenacious and resourceful Renata Drake” Meg Gardiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author California, Southern Humboldt County, 1985. Renata Drake steps off a Greyhound bus and into small-town Garberville, hoping to disappear. She checks the papers. She’s not headline news. Not yet. But she’s made a mistake. The FBI have the cannabis-producing “Emerald Triangle” town—and its corrupt residents—in their sights. Even worse, a teenage girl is missing, and when she turns up dead, the third in three years, it’s clear a serial killer is living among them. Renata knows about murdered girls and the burning desire for justice—and for revenge. Her younger sister Josie is gone, and now, so is the man who killed her. Renata didn’t stay in Washington, D.C. to be arrested for executing a murderer, and she shouldn’t stay here either. But Renata decides to investigate, and what she uncovers will trigger a final For herself, for a killer, and for all of Southern Humboldt. This powerful, page-turning thriller explores the human cost of corruption and the psychological toll that violence takes on women.**

Avg Rating
3.56
Number of Ratings
18
5 STARS
17%
4 STARS
39%
3 STARS
33%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
6%
goodreads

Author

Kelli Stanley
Kelli Stanley
Author · 9 books

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.

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