A Bitter-Sweet Ending for Cara Black

RHYS BOWEN: This is a good week. I have dear friends with new books out, visiting us on Jungle Reds, and starting with one of my closest friends, Cara Black. Cara and I have had a book launch around the same time for many years and have previously toured together ( lots of fun, some strange adventures).

 Now I'm in Arizona and Cara is goodness knows where today, off on a book tour all over the country. But I was lucky enough to snag her before she set off and ask her to share details of the latest, and last in her beloved Parisian series.

CARA BLACK: Bonjour REDS! Rhys was recently over for lunch and reminded to get my post ready for you all. It’s a bit of a bittersweet one since it’s about my new Aimée Leduc book, MURDER AT LA VILLETTE, which is just out. Bittersweet, I’ll explain but first it’s exciting, too. 

Thrilling to bring readers to the 19th arrondissement, the underbelly of Paris on the canal. While working undercover in a start-up funded by the local 19th arrondissement initiative, Aimée Leduc, a computer security specialist PI, is unhappy at the toxic staff environment + treatment of local employees. Especially, Isabelle, a cleaner and former junkie, who’s gone clean in a program along with Aimée’s cousin, Sébastien, and who supports her brother disabled with muscular dystrophy. Aimée’s ex, Melac, formerly in the anti-terrorist brigade, and bio father of her 3 year old daughter Chloé, is insisting they move to Brittany and live on his farm. 

That train left a long time ago - Conflicted, she knows fresh farm life, sea air and nature would be wonderful for her child but stuck on a farm for how long? Aimée, a Parisienne, needs a cafe at the corner and Chloé’s in preschool, but is that being a good mom? As if this wasn’t tugging on her mind, Aimée’s in a new relationship with Loic Bellan. Juggling her undercover job, her detective agency with her partner René, being a mother, trying to maintain her relationship with Bellan is stressful enough without Melac hounding her to meet him and consider shared custody in Brittany. Melac, who's been stalking her, insists they meet after her work. When he leaves a cryptic message that ‘he’s just seen a ghost’ she knows that’s unlike him. Concerned, she looks for him by the canal where he usually waits/stalks her after work figuring to deal with this once and for all - she’s not sharing custody with Melac or moving to Brittany. 

What she discovers upends her life as events take a disastrous turn. Aimée realizes she’s been set up as a suspect in murder. She goes on the run, in a cat and mouse chase, donning disguises in the 19th arrondissement of Paris Up to her neck, Aimée realises she must take help where she can. If she doesn’t find the murderer she’ll face the consequences - lose her daughter, business, everything. Convinced she’s been set up she’s afraid to lose her daughter, never see her again. 

People often ask me why I write mysteries and thrillers, and I know the Reds and Readers will have their reasons, which I'd love to hear. I came up with three reasons: -

1st- There’s a real crime that intrigues me. Sometimes I read about this, a French flic tells me about one of her/his cases, or a miscarriage of justice happening to a friend. In M at LV - this was inspired by a serial killer who’d eluded the police for 30 yrs despite his composite sketch being on the Commissariat wall - his identity was in the papers the day I walked this street with my friend a policeman, where his first victim was discovered, a young girl. Echos of past in the community, weight of history, reverberations of crime thru generations. 

This idea leads me into ‘what would I do, if that were me?’ ‘would I be able to survive?’ and ‘what if…’ being curious + asking questions. I feel it’s important to show why historical crime fiction matters, and hopefully in 3 Hours, Night Flight I found ways how to breathe life into forgotten moments, lost voices, little told women’s stories and the timeless human experience and now, in small ways, in Aimée’s investigation in the 19th. -

2nd-I like that there’s a fight for justice, a wrong to be righted, a form of justice triumphs in a mystery that doesn’t often happen in life, it’s a resolution - but not every bow gets tied. I like mysteries and thrillers with high stakes - if character doesn’t solve the crime someone could die, or in a thriller; can a character get loose, escape? Can they accomplish their mission? In Aimée’s case she has no choice. If she doesn’t find the killer she faces prison + losing her child. Her life ruined. The killer gets away to strike again. -3rd-I like learning about forensics and police procedures in Paris, how the canal system works, going in the sewers to know how it feels, going on the rooftops, meeting detectives and seeing if female flics can run in heels. Finding the ambiance of this area. Research for this book took me to parts off the beaten track. Emigres have settled here over the centuries, it’s residential, formerly industrial because of it’s location on the canal. 

Working people can still afford to raise a family there. Ethnically and culturally it’s diverse, a large Orthodox Jewish population, those of North Africans and Arab descent, In the 1900’s Germans settled and established a church. There’s Résistance history - a female chemist who made bombs, the attack on the petit ceinture as Germans retreated, my friend’s father who was arrested outside the police station and sent to Struthof-Natzweiller camp. Charming pockets and feel of old Paris, how a cafe owner knew my friend and told stories, and so many memories held here. 

Right now, I know I’ve done more than what I dreamed possible in Paris and solving crime in all the arrondissements. Actually I goofed and set two books in one arrondissement, so there’s now 21. It’s defined my life for 25 years. Financed my Paris addiction. I’ve always gone to Paris feeling like a reporter hunting for Aimée’s next story

The Aimée Leduc mysteries have been the framework of my world and my family’s and now you might be wondering what might come next for me, but all I can say at this point is “Watch this space.” I don’t know if there will another story to tell or where it would happen. I don’t know if this is Aimée’s last bow, the closing novel in the series. For now I’ve written another book which is at my editor’s - of course set in France. 

Where should I go next? Somewhere else in France? What time period? I'll be giving away a signed copy of Murder at La Villette to the suggestion I like the best! 

I'm on tour right now ,so maybe I'll come to your neck of the woods.

Merci for having me, Reds and love to hear your thoughts! Cara http://www.carablack.com

RHYS: Where should Cara go next? She will be giving away a signed copy of the LAST Aimee LeDuc book! Add your comments to be included.

Camoflaged by an MD: Sandra Cavallo Miller writes about a serial killer

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Sandra Cavallo Miller sets her fiction in Phoenix in the summer where temperatures climb to 110 and beyond, where you could bake cookies on your dashboard. Her new book is aptly named, Where No One Should Live, and it poses a very scary what-if.

SANDRA CAVALLO MILLER: This might be the first novel with the main female protagonist as public health physician. Add to that how little fiction is set in modern Phoenix during the summer and let the adventures begin.

It’s hard to live and work through a desert summer, and it’s worse when unexplained illnesses begin plaguing a medical clinic that trains doctors. One physician in particular seems targeted.

How did I come to write this?

In my work at a family medicine residency (teaching new physicians), I often interviewed medical students—a rewarding task. I loved helping new doctors prepare to practice.

During an interview, though, it’s challenging to assess character and ethics. People are on their best behavior. If you have ever hired people, you know sometimes the most outgoing, likable candidates turn out to have the most problems; sometimes the quiet, humble applicants are better workers.

Nearly everyone has stories about difficult and concerning co-workers who seemed normal at first. Feel free to share. It can get scary.

Then I read Stewart’s book Blind Eye, a documentary about Dr. Michael Swango. Swango began as a serial poisoner and progressed to a serial killer who likely murdered sixty people.

No one wants to think about that, especially in the healthcare setting. But while rare in the big picture, the reality lurks. Most are nurses and a handful are physicians. Most are male, but females aren’t spared. And no one knows how many are never discovered.

The FBI estimates that about fifty serial killers operate in this country now. Other experts feel the number is much higher, well over a thousand. Considering that only sixty percent of all murders are solved, that leaves a huge number of unexplained cases. Medical settings are especially tricky because underlying disease easily cloaks poison symptoms. Physicians don’t suspect foul play, so they don’t look for it.

This happened with Michael Swango, when worried nurses reported unexpected patient deaths whenever he took call. The hospital administration wrote off the nurses’ complaints as silly and hysterical. But the nurses were right.

Could it have happened with me—missing dubious symptoms or a suspicious death?

I certainly hope not and probably did not, but I always wonder if I unknowingly might have interviewed such a psychopath. Would I realize something was off? They can be charming and agreeable. If they became a colleague, would I have recognized the patterns? Or become a victim?

Swango (convicted in 2000), Christopher Duntsch (convicted in 2011), and Kermit Gosnell (convicted in 2010) all interviewed for residencies in the U.S. and were hired.

Thoughts like this can drive us to write fiction. To play out our fears. In the novel, Dr. Maya Summer goes about her daily business, dealing with rabies and infectious mosquitoes and parasites in swimming pools (to name a few), at first unaware of the covert danger.

It needn’t be with medical drugs, either … we’re surrounded by toxins. There are pesticides and herbicides in my garage. One year we had rodents, so there was rat poison. Oleander grows in my backyard, and the park where I hike sprouts many datura (jimson weed) vines; both plants are deadly. Other areas of the country grow wild hemlock, nightshade, and castor bean plants. Be careful.

Where No One Should Live is a mixed-genre novel, combining the complicated tasks facing a public health physician (written pre-Covid) with an alarming and escalating series of illnesses in clinic staff.

It was highly entertaining to write and I hope you enjoy it.

HALLIE: This is reminding me of when I was a college professor and we were interviewing a candidate for an opening. Something about him felt... off. And I argued vigorously against inviting him back.

Later I found a news article about how he'd been fired from his previous position. As I recall, it was for erratic behavior; he was suing. I was glad I'd ruled him out based on the interview and his resume alone, but I've often wondered where he landed. Like an MD physician, a PhD professor has unfettered access to vulnerable young adults.

Anyone else had what, in retrospect, seems like an all-too-close encounter with trouble... hopefully not a serial killer. Or maybe someone got your hackles and then turned out to be harmless?