(I was in a rush out the door on an urgent HOT FUDGE MISSION, so to explain: book A is set in small-town Japan and is about the unlikely friendship and bizarre adventures of two girls, a Gothic Lolita devotee and a kind of biker punk. Book B is the first of a rare mystery series I actually liked, featuring Fremont Jones, "typewriter" (secretary/typist) and amateur sleuth in San Francisco around the time of the Great Quake. It seemed pretty well researched to me, but it's not my field of expertise.)