San Francisco mysteries

February, 1940. In San Francisco's Chinatown, fireworks explode as the city celebrates Chinese New Year with a Rice Bowl Party, a three-day-and-night carnival designed to raise money and support for China war relief. Miranda Corbie is a thirty-three-year-old private investigator who stumbles upon the fatally shot body of Eddie Takahashi. The Chamber of Commerce wants it covered up. The cops acquiesce. All Miranda wants is justice-whatever it costs....

"Working in San Francisco as a PI years [after her work in the Spanish Civil War, World War II seems] a world away, but it might as well be on [Miranda Corbie's] doorstep now that she's learned that her mother--whom she hasn't seen in years--is trapped in England. There isn't much she can do until the State Department asks her to keep an eye on a chemistry professor who they suspect is a Nazi spy trafficking in information on allied forces armaments....