FOREIGN CRIMES IN FOREIGN CLIMES

Monday, March 15             

7:30 PM                                

CARA BLACK and DAVID CORBETT

Murder in the Palais Royal

Do They Know I’m Running?

MURDER IN THE PALAIS ROYAL is the tenth book in Cara Black’s Parisian crime series starring P.I. Aimée Leduc. Last year’s Murder in the Latin Quarter debuted at #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list, garnered much praise, and found Black interviewed in the streets of Paris for NPR’s All Things Considered. Now, with a narrative call back to her first novel, Palais Royal is poised to be her biggest hit yet.

In Murder In The Palais Royal, Aimée’s business partner, René, has been shot, and eyewitnesses have identified Aimée as the culprit. A mysterious deposit has been made to their firm's bank account, interesting the taxman in their affairs. Someone seems to be impersonating Aimée; someone wants revenge. Two murders ensue. How do they relate to the youth whom Aimée's testimony sent to jail in the very first Aimée Leduc investigation, Murder in the Marais?       

“The ninth mystery in Cara Black’s irresistible series set in Paris . . . might well be the book we’ve been waiting for. Aimée Leduc, Black’s adorably punkish sleuth, is in her element . . . one of this colorful series’s most scenic itineraries.” -- New York Times Book Review

Cara Black is the author of nine other novels in the best-selling Aimée Leduc series. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.

DO THEY KNOW I’M RUNNING? from acclaimed author David Corbett is a stunning and suspenseful novel of a life without loyalties and the borders inside ourselves.

Roque Montalvo is wise beyond his eighteen years. Orphaned at birth, a gifted musician, he’s stuck in a California backwater, helping his Salvadoran aunt care for his damaged brother, an ex-marine badly wounded in Iraq. When immigration agents arrest his uncle, the family has nowhere else to turn. Roque, badgered by his street-hardened cousin, agrees to bring the old man back, relying on the criminal gangs that control the dangerous smuggling routes from El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, to the U.S. border.
 
But his cousin has told Roque only so much. In reality, he will have to transport not just his uncle but two others: an Arab whose intentions are disturbingly vague and a young beauty promised to a Mexican crime lord. Roque discovers that his journey involves crossing more than one kind of border, and he will be asked time and again to choose between survival and betrayal -- of his country, his family, his heart.

David Corbett is the author of three critically acclaimed novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime, and Blood of Paradise, nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, and named one of the Top Ten Mysteries and Thrillers of 2007 by the Washington Post and a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book. His short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, and his story "Pretty Little Parasite," from Las Vegas Noir, was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2009.