Saturday, March 1, 2014

Cara Black

Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 14 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Murder in Pigalle is the latest installment. Black has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—the Paris City Medal, which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture—and invitations to be the Guest of Honor at conferences such as the Paris Polar Crime Festival and Left Coast Crime. With more than 400,000 books in print, the Aimée Leduc series has been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Black's reply:
Right now, I’m reading a non-fiction book Hitler’s Furies - German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower. So far this book brings to life, through recovered archives, recently released Stasi files, documentation of the German women’s role in World War II. It wasn’t all kinder, kuche and kirche with women on the home front — five hundred thousand women were needed and trained to work in the Nazi machinery especially concentrating on the conquered land in the East — a frontier reclaimed by the Germans as their legacy populating it with Germanic people. This book sticks with me in a haunting way because it’s about the forgotten role of women at the time and why they did what did or had to at the time. It’s scary and a fascinating picture of a morally ‘lost generation’ of young women born into a defeated, tumultuous post World War I Germany.
Visit Cara Black's website.

The Page 69 Test: Murder at the Lanterne Rouge.

My Book, the Movie: Murder at the Lanterne Rouge.

Writers Read: Cara Black (February 2012).

The Page 69 Test: Murder below Montparnasse.

Writers Read: Cara Black (March 2013).

--Marshal Zeringue