Kelli Stanley’s "City of Dragons," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley.

The entry begins:

First, I want to thank Marshal for letting my imagination run wild in the fields of celluloid! I loved dreaming about film adaptations for Nox Dormienda, my first novel, and am thrilled to be back!

City of Dragons is a PI series set in 1940 San Francisco, a reimagining of noir with the censorship gloves off and a femme fatale in the driver’s seat. And period pieces are almost as tough as my protagonist.

Miranda Corbie is a PI, ex-Spanish Civil War nurse and former escort. She’s a rich, complex character, and City of Dragons is really her book—and her movie. I’m also adamant about trying to capture the truth of the era … to not get lost in the fog of nostalgia but to show both the beauty and the ugliness of the past.

After all, you scratch 2010 and underneath—covered up with a veneer of social progress and respectability—is 1940, with all the concomitant human problems that still plague us: poverty, crime, racism, sexism, ignorance.

But—and this is important—I don’t see it as “neo-noir.” I envision the film almost with a post-war neo-realism vibe, mixed with some expressionistic camera movement—Otto Preminger, maybe, or Charles Vidor or Jacques Tourneur or Nicholas Ray.

So … it’s tricky. I don’t want...[read on]

Read an excerpt from City of Dragons, and learn more about the novel and author at Kelli Stanley's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Nox Dormienda.

The Page 69 Test: City of Dragons.

My Book, The Movie: City of Dragons.

--Marshal Zeringue