From The Strange Files of Modesty Brown
In a place that isn't there, between Beantown and the Big Apple. In a time that never existed, somewhere after the Flappers but before the Bobby Soxers, the Night Train gallops toward the broken beating heart of the neon-lit City. And between the Outskirts and the City, between her old life and a new one, Modesty Brown rides the Night Train, en route to her new job as typist for Jack Wonderly, Peculiar Detective.
The train is lousy with oddballs: palm-reading musicians, shape shifting low-lifes, bartenders with cryptic tattoos, and mysterious criminals behind closed doors. And in some peculiar way, they all seem to have a connection to the first file she received from Wonderly Investigations.
Equal parts cool noir and punk rock fairy tale, The Strange Files of Modesty Brown is a Decopunk Mystery, a short novelette where Red Riding Hood wears Sam Spade's trilby hat AND a femme fatale's lipstick.