Noir imagery
The smoky, black-and-white noir feel of this Trilogy is not accidental. The writer invokes the tropes of the genre, helping the reader to fill in the blanks correctly in their mind. The stories are about shady characters doing things in the dark, hoping never to be caught, and the author, the reader, and the characters are on a journey to shine light on something critical that lurks in the dark. This is imagery pointing toward art noir.
Ghastly imagery
The imagery of disgust and horror is used in these stories to invoke a visceral response in the reader. In fact, on story is called "Ghosts," and the other two titles point the reader toward feelings of instability and entrapment: "City of Glass" implies something dangerously close to breaking, and "The Locked Room," implies the horror of being trapped, which the writer sort of is. Plus, in "The Locked Room," the writer himself becomes a distortion of his self, which is creepy.
Imagery of paranoia and madness
There are maddening situations presented in the story, where coincidence, synchronicity, and irony are so overwhelming to the characters that they begin to feel they are literally going crazy. Daniel Quinn admits that the work of solving a case is so paranoid that he cannot seem to stop himself from traveling down all possible rabbit trails until he is so exhausted and confused, he doesn't know what's real or not anymore.
City imagery
The urban backdrop of the novel adds a heightened kind of thrill, because the people in the streets are at risk of all the threats that apply in the city. They are scared of mafias and gangs, criminals, petty and professional, the cops who may or may not have the city's best interest in mind, and of course counter-intelligence, which is a threat well-known to the genre. The city is offered as the domain for social drama and conspiracy.
