noir

This was a very odd read. It started weird, strange even, and then went full on psychological thriller and yet I find myself wondering what I just read. 

An unnamed woman is offered the chance to step into the life of a celebrity because she looks similar to Rosanna Feld, an actress who has gone into seclusion after a mental health crisis.  Rosanna can no longer go out in public to be photographed by the paparazzi or give interviews to help further her career.  Max offers her a chance to live the Hollywood life and is being paid handsomely to leave her old life behind.

She is left alone for

A mother has missed getting back on her train, leaving her sleeping child alone onboard. Now someone has taken the child off of the train near Stockholm, snatched from under the nose of the train staff, who were supposed to be looking out for her. What caused the mother to leave the train for so long in the first place, and how could the staff have missed the girl leaving?

Frederika Bergman is relatively new to the Stockholm police force. She is an analyst who has joined the special investigative team of star detective Alex Recht. No one is sure if Frederika is cut out for police work

Miranda Corbie is a San Francisco private investigator circa 1940. She smokes. She drinks. She plays hardball. She is a female Sam Spade. City Of Dragons begins on Chinese New Year. San Francisco is hosting a "Rice Bowl Party" to raise money for war relief in China. The tale starts with a bang: “Miranda didn’t hear the sound he made when his face hit the sidewalk.”

Eddie Takahashi was a Japanese punk and a mobster-wanna-be. No one wants his death investigated. Miranda is warned off by the police and Italian and Japanese mobsters as well as her own friends. Despite it all, she remains