Kelli Stanley

Kelli Stanley is the multiple award-winning and critically acclaimed creator of the Miranda Corbie series (City of Dragons, City of Secrets, City of Ghosts, City of Sharks), noir novels set in 1940 San Francisco and featuring “one of crime’s most arresting heroines” (Library Journal). Kelli has also written an award-winning “Roman Noir” series set in Roman Britain (Nox Dormienda, The Curse-Maker), and has published numerous short stories and essays. A winner of the Macavity, Bruce Alexander, Golden Nugget and Anthony awards, she was also a Shamus and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, while the City and County of San Francisco awarded her a Certificate of Merit for her contributions to literature. She was named a literary heir of Dashiell Hammett by his granddaughter in a Publisher’s Weekly article, and critics have compared her work to her icons Raymond Chandler and Norman Corwin. Kelli was chosen to be the Historical Mystery Guest of Honor for the Bouchercon Mystery Conference in 2024.

Her next novel, The Reckoning, is a tense and haunting mystery-thriller set in Humboldt County, CA in 1985—the heart of the “Emerald Triangle” during a fraught and frightening era of unsolved disappearances, serial killers and the intense criminalization of marijuana. The Reckoning is the first of a series featuring protagonist Renata Drake.

Kelli holds a Master’s Degree in Classics, and when she’s not reading or writing, loves nature walks, jazz, classic film, travel, and, with her spouse, taking care of their two rescue cats.