 Hello and welcome. Thank you for joining us at Mechanics Institute online for our program Murder at the Porte de Versailles and Amy Le Duc investigation set in Paris with author Cara Black. I'm Laura Shepherd, director of events at Mechanics Institute. And if you're new to us, Mechanics Institute was founded in 1854 and is one of San Francisco's most vital literary and cultural centers in the heart of the city. We feature our General Interest Library, an international chess club, our ongoing author and literary programs, and our Friday Night Cinema Lit Film series. Please see our website at milibrary.org and come visit us in person because we are open. If you'd like to purchase the book, Murder at the Porte de Versailles, it will be available. The pub date is now March 15. And Cara is holding it up and you can also go to alexanderbook.com to purchase books or visit an independent bookstore near you. We're so thrilled to have Cara back. She's a dear friend and colleague. And we're very pleased to welcome her for her riveting 20th installment of her New York Times bestselling television detective series, which is a protagonist, Amy the Duke, in a dangerous web of international spy craft and terrorist threat in Paris in the 15th arrondissement. And Cara, along with the series, is also the author of a thriller, Three Hours in Paris, and she's received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Maccabee McCavity Award in Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, French, Japanese and Hebrew. Cara comes to us. She lives in San Francisco, of course, and visits Paris often. So please welcome back Cara Black. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. So nice to be here. So nice to be at the Mechanics Institute from my kitchen in Noe Valley. How are you all? It's nice to be out there. And Laura was just asking me, am I touring? And it's sort of a hybrid book tour, which I guess is what we're doing these days. We're getting to come out and a little bit emerge and doing some bookstores, doing a lot of Zoom events. Last weekend I was in LA at Romans. It was very interesting. Everyone was masked and had to show their vaccination. Tomorrow I'm going to the Tucson Book Festival, which is outdoors, you know, it's at the university, it's open air. So it'll be interesting to see how that's handled, you know, whether we're intense with masks or, you know, it's always, of course, hard to speak, right? If you've got a mask on. But anyway, thank you very much. It's nice to talk about this story. I'll just tell you about the story and then I'll talk about where it came from. So it's, and it's also been, you know, two years since I've had an Amy LeDuc book, so it's very welcoming to be back in her world. And the story starts right after 9-11 in our country. It was set in France. And there is, you know, people are sort of living in a state of fear if you cast your mind back to what happened, you know, how, how we all felt after 9-11. And in France what people, you know, was not well known is that right at 10 days after 9-11 there was a explosion in Toulouse down south, which happened in a factory and it was this explosive which no one talked about. You know, and this is where the French NASA is. It's where the, you know, aerospace industry is. So, you know, I always thought that was very interesting. So, right now, Amy LeDuc, it's November, and Amy LeDuc, it's at the Cemetery Paraliches, the famous cemetery, with her daughter and paying respects to her father's mausoleum because he actually his ashes, he was the anniversary of his death. He was killed in a mysterious bomb explosion in Place Vendôme. And Amy is with her daughter Chloe, the three-year-old. It's very bittersweet because it's Chloe's birthday. So after they pay their respects, they go back to Amy's apartment on Yosanoui, you know, to have a great birthday party. And Chloe is so excited, you know, she's three years old. She got these fuzzy kind of zebra striped boots for her birthday and she won't, she sleeps with them, right? She can't take them off. She's a little fashionista in training like her mother. And at the party, Amy feels that there is her family around her, even though she's lost her father and her American mother abandoned her, you know, when she was small. There's Commiser Morbier, her godfather, who we've met in previous Amy LeDuc books. And Morbier is so proud of Chloe, he calls her that he's, she's his, she, he's her great godfather. And Renee Freon, who is her partner at the detective agency, is the godfather. He's running around, you know, taking videos because remember, in 2001, we were using video cameras. We were dialing up. Remember dial up. We were paying in Frank's. And you could smoke in the cafes, just, just to let you know. And so at this time at the party, Boris, the artist there with his boyfriend, Mishu, and they're, they're wonderful and babysit Chloe all the time, dear friends. And Melak is there who is the biological father of Chloe. And Melak is pressuring Amy. You know, he's living up in Brittany now he's got this farm, he said we can live there. You could do it remotely. Now, I think that happened because I was writing of course this story during the pandemic. But of course, you could do that. And Chloe would, you know, have sea air, you know, they have goats, we have horses, there's vegetable garden how healthy it would be, you know, on the sea. And Amy is like, you know, she likes to live where there's a cafe on the corner. And she doesn't think there's any cafes at the end of the farm field. And she's wondering, you know, am I being selfish. She's feeling guilty. Is this something she should do for her daughter, this work. So she's sort of suffering these kind of, you know, inner conflicts he's pressuring her. And they're just about, you know, wonderful party champagne and foie gras and a special kind of macaron cake because this is Paris after all right even though it's a three year old's birthday party, just about to open the house. And Boris VR goes on one do I forgot Chloe's birthday gift. It's on the desk at my work. He works at the police lab. He finishes his champagne jumps in a taxi and goes to the police lab. So the party continues and it ends everybody goes home and Chloe's put to bed. The kitchen washing up the champagne flutes and Amy is like where is Boris. He hasn't returned. They get a phone call, and there has been a bomb explosion at the police laboratory. Boris is found in a rubble with traces of the explosive on his finger under his fingernails. So Boris is a suspect in the bombing. And Boris is still alive when he's recovered. Immediately he's taken and he's a suspect, and the police who he's worked with, you know, we're not listening to anything Amy is determined this is impossible I mean how could he have done this why would he do this. Even the laboratory texts who Boris worked with every day are turning against him. You know the evidence is almost so clear. And so Amy has to struggle to try and convince people everything she does she finds things that look more damning to his case. So along the way more, more BA is telling her to leave it alone, and Melak is going you know it's just no good you know something happened. So that's where the you know the story is and it, and it goes from there. I think what I realized is my editor was saying that she really liked working on this story, because she could go back into Amy the Duke's world. You know and it was a nice place to go during the pandemic a world we knew, or you know we knew fictionally and, and I agreed you know with all the characters, and all the you know, things that they face, and that she felt in the story was family. And I thought you know I, I didn't know that of course my editor always has to tell me, but I think so. And that really came from writing about this 15th arrondissement and I'm sorry I'm looking out the window and there are people on the roof of the house right but they're fine they're roofers. I thought they were firemen. And so it's really about the 15th arrondissement now the 15th arrondissement has a population the size of Bordeaux. A lot of people. It is the second largest land wise. In Paris, you've probably gone through it. There's you, but you people don't really go there unless you live there there's no monuments. It part of it does border the sun, and there's a wedge of the 15th, that just borders the seventh so it's very she she you know very nice. The schools are very good. So people, what they say is when you say to someone I live in Paris in the 15th, they do this. Generally speaking, you know you you grow up you, you know you party when you're in university, you know you hang out you go to the clubs and bars and the nightlife wherever you are in Saint Germain or in the Marais or in the 11th. And then you get married, and then you have children, and that's where you move if you can afford it with kids because the schools are good. So that's kind of where you go and people like Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris lives there. Francois Hollande, the former president, the one who was seeing his mistress on the moped, you know, he lives there, but they it's very low key you know it's not no one is, you know they live in an apartment it's very, they keep it on the low down. So again, it's, you know, and then there's these pockets of working class, you know, and pockets of what was working class before, because where there are a lot of new apartments, not necessarily what we like you know as Americans we love those house mania and or. These are more 6070s 80s kind of modern. Those were built on where the old Citroën car manufacturing factory was. And so that was so that you know you think there there was a lot of workers and there were these little lanes with small, you know two story houses workers houses that are not, not really affordable much anymore but still very picturesque. There's also Park George Brassa named after the folk singer, which is next to where the police laboratory is and this park was the former abattoir slaughterhouse. You know for horse mainly horses but beef as well because remember before refrigerators were in wide use. People had ice boxes literally or they would just go in by fresh horse meat or meat every day you know like to buy fresh eggs, they go by fresh milk. All that kind of things so the, the old abattoir is now, and they sort of cut it off, but you see the book stalls. That is part of the antique book book market on the weekends every weekend, because it's underneath and they cut this off, but it's an old glass ceiling art nouveau. What do I want to call structure right for a market designed by Eiffel. I mean he designed not only the Eiffel tower he you know he designed many things in the city. So it's this roof with glass, you know with the rod iron around it. That was the old horse mark horse butchie that's now left and you should go if you're in you know pair go there on the weekend it's really lovely. And then you are right on the park, and you're there's a little, they have wine, they have grapes, little tiny vineyard, and then across is the police laboratory, the biological police laboratory which is there. Next to the car impound next to the central laboratory of Paris where they have the arson investigations, explosives, and next to that around the corner is the object to be lost and found. You can find your umbrella and the metro or your sunglasses. And someone turned them in they've gone there, and you can go there and fill out a form and triplicate and wait and it's very Balzacian, and get usually you get your, your material back. You know, it's just amazing. And so, and I've been upstairs they have a cafeteria for lunch where everyone from the labs go and eat, and oh, I have to tell you they really need to improve that. It's like canteen food everywhere. And so this area where the police lab is in is is real. They have since moved since I wrote the story and I'm going to open this window because it's so hot. And the story came from came from what one of my friends told me about. He used to live in Rue de Danzig which is where this, you know where this police lab is. He literally lived in this family apartment across from the police laboratory, his windows overlooked it. And he was maybe 10. I'm not sure he said he woke up in the middle of the night he'd fallen out of bed. And he didn't know what was going on and he heard this thing. There was a bomb at the police laboratory, literally across from his window. In the morning, his parents said oh yeah there was a bomb explosion but you know, everything's okay it was just the bus again. Those bus separatists you know always bombing in Paris and very unlike our country I mean it happened a lot. And it was a political statement, and they were password bus were very proud they wanted to separate from Spain and France, they're proud that no one was ever hurt. Okay, because it was a political statement around that time, 86 87 I'm not sure I can't remember. There was a bombing at Interpol now Interpol used to be in Bologna just across the river from Paris, you keep on going right there. Before it moved to Leon. And there was a huge bombing. No one was killed people were a few the guard was injured. There was all these explosives thrown inside and it wreaked a lot of damage, blew out the windows from the whole neighborhood. And this was done by terrorists who were from from the with links. There weren't really sure they had all these theories. And I thought that was so interesting. And a policeman told me about it. And he introduced me to his friend who worked at Interpol who introduced me to a man who used to work at Interpol at that time, who had been there, who'd been in Paris and went with, you know, went with a group to go respond they were eating dinner in Paris and, and, but it was so interesting to connect with this man because I wasn't given his real name. And I was told that he would call me because I couldn't call him. So he called me from Algeria, we had this really fascinating phone call when he told me about it, you know, and so a lot of that I could use right in the story. And what I think is, you know that this guy is a spy right still calling me from Algiers it was pretty cool. And he told me about that and I really wanted to incorporate that in the story, as well as my friend who is in my book group is from Iran. And she said, Well, Kara, if you're writing about the 15th my cousin lives there, because she lives in this area, part of the 15th, which is called Tehran Tehran source and, you know, Tehran on the on the other hand, there's a huge enclave of Iranians Persian people. And there's Persian restaurants, which I've eaten in shops. You know, it's not very big, but you know there's a definite influence. And I said, and I just was like, I don't understand this. And she said, Well, first of all, we're Persians, because you know that's what we prefer to be called. As I knew, as she is, many people, many of them are sophisticated, well educated, and they're very sophisticated. So a lot of them came in the 60s and early 70s with petro dollars right a lot of money. And they bought apartments in the 15th. And of course, you know, stay there part of the years and their kids into the Sorbonne. Actually the shot of Iran met his, his woman who became his wife the Faridiba in Paris. She was studying maybe this was the late 50s. She was studying architecture, you know, and her father had studied in Paris so there's this great kind of relationship between Persia, Iran and French. And so there were these people who bought apartments who were very cultured. And then there were the people. So the shawls deposed I believe 79. So then they had to flee, right, the people that were still in that new youth, right, wealthy people with money or without the money you know I mean they just had to leave. And all those came people came with a migraine culture. And then after that, and deferred Diba. I think she now lives in Washington DC with her outside Washington but she used to live on the K door say in Paris. You know, but they have a very special relationship with friends. And then there were the people the revolutionary guard under the I told us who had a hit list. And you know people they wanted to get back at who had fled with the Shaw. And so they would have this hit list, and they would send proxy assassins proxy assassins they would hire them, you know, from other places. And one I heard about where the Palestinian Marxist Palestinian Marxist hired to hit targets in France, you know, Persian Iranian so I mean the police told me that. And it was a long going long running issue that the that their security service like ours are you know the national security service. And they had their name they were out for these guys, you know, because they were protecting one of the shots last secretaries in the government who was very liberal, who was trying to start negotiations, you know who was really trying to, to make something happen. And, and they, they attacked and killed him even though he was guarded by French police, and it took them 15 years and they found to die. They found very much you know that their honor was hurt that, you know, he was killed on French soil. So I heard all these stories, you know it was just fascinating that all this residential area had these sort of seeding conflicts underneath. And of course any place where people live and live in families of course there's going to be issues right we all have them so I really wanted to write about that again it has no huge monumental monuments value but I felt it was very very fascinating. And I just walked around, I met people, and actually in this in the story. There's a butcher, a Monsieur label, and his shop is where I say it is and Monsieur label who's in his 90s is working I mean I haven't seen him for two years so I hope he's still there. He's like one of the last horse butchers in Paris, you know because that's sort of gone out of fashion. But yeah he was telling me about when he worked at this market. And of course in my story and he has to go there to Monsieur label because you know her dog news Davies Miles Davis or be shown please they likes horse meat so she's got to go to Paris to go to the horse butcher. And I have to say that when I was you know this book was nice because I got to take longer time with it. I mean it was a pandemic, and I had another book come out three hours in Paris the historical. It was more time with this story. And I could, I really, I really fell in love with this a rendezvous. I first I was, how can I write about such a boring place, well it wasn't boring at all. I really fell in love with it. I love the street where Monsieur label has his butcher shop. I started going to a wonderful independent well there's a couple of them in one little group, the divan. And because it was raining one day and it was cold and I ran into this wonderful bookstore where there were just sofas everywhere divans, you know and wonderful children section or whatever and I just sat there you know and just, I mean it's all French but it's just I love that bookstore you know and I really wanted to use, I got to use that place in the scene. And I love the market. There's one market I really love news on Russo Charles I don't remember which day, but I will go, I will go across town wherever I am to go to that market because I like it because there's many different things. Is that a great word you call it like shark Q3 place for take out you know it's, there's a you know it's the man is grinding knives sharpening knives, like he has little thing. You know it's just, I love it, you know it's just very French. And you know why wouldn't you cross time to go there get fresh, fresh items and good bakery. And when you talk to someone who lives in the 15th arrondies want you say, where you know tell me some good spots and they'll tell you their cheese monger and the where they buy their fish and the butcher and the bakery, where they get their polar and bread. I mean because, you know, I've talked to so many people in the 15th and they said our cheese shop it's the best in Paris. Just just come here just for don't worry just come here. And they're very much a part of their, of their Cartier and you know the children's school and you know it's, it's just very family oriented and in a way that feels so French away from tourism, and I don't know. I like it, I really liked it a lot I really felt that I, I could relate to it in many ways. What else can I tell you, oh, and a lot of the store. Oh, then I got to and I won't keep going on but my friend I met a woman I was introduced by a policeman to the woman who runs the police laboratory where Boris Burt, and she ran it. It's the biological police laboratory where they go to the police go to a crime scene, and they take blood seem and any kind of chemical evidence and they send it to this lab right, and they process it, and they send it back to the police or to court. It's very quick to very good. They only they don't do foot fingerprints unless there's blood you know bloody fingerprint but that's a special unit. And so they're down from just a few doors down from the arson center in the bomb center. So she took me on a tour. I went to visit them three times. I think they all got sick of me but they took me around. And they're of all the women, biologists, scientists and texts. There's only two men in this laboratory. It's run by a woman, as well as the arson. And I remember I was saying to them, Oh, you're all women. And they go, Well, yeah. And one of the guys said I'm one of the two token men here but and I was just really proud they were like don't you have a lot of women and science and biology in the US and I'm like, not like you, I mean, you know, and it's funny. So she took me around many times she took me down into this area that's like a tunnel that leads to the next building. She also showed me where the specimens are kept. I mean it's you know and it has to be cold and refrigerated. And then we walked out into the parking lot which is behind the borders the park. And there were several portable refrigeration units. You know, like big, big freezer things that were portable. And I said, Oh, well, what's that? She goes, Well, you know, you saw how cramped it is and you saw how our, our, you know, we only have one big giant freeway, but it broke down. So we had to rent these portable refrigeration units. And the parking lot and I was just like, Wow, you know, they just had to make do and work the best way they can because that's, you know, property specimens evidence used in a court case right I mean that needs to be protected. So it was really interesting to see how real life works in the police laboratory. I also, you know, took her out to dinner by bought her wine and she's just wonderful. I also took the arson specialist out for lunch. Well, I was introduced to him. And he was coming. And he was late. And it was, you know, it was fine. He was coming for lunch. And he came and he apologized profusely. I'm sorry I'm so late. I had to, you know, and I said I was working. I said, Hey, no problem. You're doing me a favor. Thank you for coming. It was well I was at Notre Dame, because this was two weeks at that time after the fire in Notre Dame. So he was there, you know, doing the arson investigation. He was the head of it, and showing us photos and he couldn't tell us very much but, you know, just how painstaking their examination and investigation had to be. The, and then I met an explosive expert with the FBI, who, you know, on the phone and he told me he said well here's here's what you need to know. Testing for explosives is painstaking as well. You know, because it just has to be done you think, think of an explosion. You know, think of it, you know, it blows out into 1000 50,000 100,000 pieces. And as a person, you know, trying to figure out the cause and you know all the factors. And you have to it's like putting this kind of puzzle back together again. You take a Q tip, you know, and you go on a, you swab from a street sign, you know, a block away, you know, you've got to put all these things together it's just amazingly intricate and difficult to painstaking And I really admire those people, but it's a really incredible job and it's so interesting how they talk about Oh, we'll just send the robot, you know, you know, because they don't want to go in right who would, but it's very common. It's very common in France so sadly, because they have this tradition of bombing for political significance. Sarah, I think I've talked a lot. Are there any questions or comments. Well, first of all, Kara, I just wanted to say this book is is really quite amazing because it is so potent that the time and the place being two months after 911 and how that has impacted the world of us and the world and also, how much terrorism came after that in Paris. And so your way of combining the suspense mystery and also portraying both the arrondissement and also the characters. It is just so potent and I wondering if you'd like to, before we go to questions, would you like to read a passage or two from your book. I don't. The only passage I have is about eight minutes too long is eight minutes long and I figure, wouldn't you rather hear what I have to say you can get the book and read it. My editor said just just talk to people because whatever I read. If you haven't read the book would be a spoiler. So I'm sorry but I feel better just answering questions or telling you something. It's hard. It's hard reading from a mystery or thriller. But I always enjoy when you read but yes, we're going to keep that suspense going till March 15 when you can get your book live in person. Okay, we'd like to take questions from from you our audience. I know we have a lot of Francophiles and Francophones here today. Anyone post a question please. I'll ask a question. This is Pam. I'm sure you deal with the level of prejudice against against what the Middle Eastern population in France did. How did it compare in the wake of 911. How do you think it compared with what we saw here in the United States, as far as paranoia about foreigners I know that there's already some level of that in in France. When it comes to when it comes to immigrants. Yeah, I mean I wasn't in France when 911 happened I was there a couple of maybe two months before. And of course I couldn't go back for a year or something. So I don't know specifically. And I don't know how well the Iranians again their Persian but they look Arab are targeted you know I can't really speak to that because I, I'm not, you know I'm not Iranian and I wasn't there but I feel again you know when you have a group of people who make an enclave you know like Tehran or Sen or up in the 10th there's that passageway little India they call it or something. You know where where immigrants, immigrants come and they want to be around they want to have people, you know, eat the food they like their home cooked food they want to buy a sorry or, you know they want to have that community around them they kind of, which are our ancestors did you know in little Italy and in New York and right and in the East, what do you call it so how south of Houston house them, you know whatever emigrant group right was there I mean it's that kind of, but these of course, were people who originally came with money I mean they, you know. So, I don't know, you know, I don't know how much their lumped, if you will with the looking Middle Eastern or whatever but one of my friends, white friends the same they've since broke up he's from Iranian extraction. He's more French than than any French guy, you know, because he, he moved there when he was young he was went to the schools he went to a very prestigious university, he's got a really good job, you know, I mean. Again, you know it's the way you look and maybe then how your name, your name maybe not, you know typically French, you know and how you deal with that when you're so educated, you know when you want to be in the job market and you have all those qualifications like other white French people do. So, I don't know, you know, I, and I also met a woman who, who was a doctor, she was trained as a, I think she had just gotten her degree in Tehran. And she, her husband was beheaded. She escaped from Iran. Yeah. And then of course, the Shah had to escape, you know it was this, you know, just compounded, but there was a, she was targeted, because of course she was married to her husband. She was, you know, young and had been demonstrating. So when she had to escape to France, you know, and go undercover she couldn't speak French. She was a doctor, and she had to find other Iranians and find cleaning jobs. She started cleaning. She worked in a, you know, cleaning in a hospital. She had to teach herself French. She also had to keep her, you know, looking around her shoulder to see if any of the Shah's people, you know, she had to change her name. I have another name. I mean, I don't know what her real name is, you know, her former name was. She taught herself French. She got into French med school. She passed the exam. She became a French doctor. She married again. And it was just amazing what she told me. And you know, she said, but I, I still don't use that name. You know, but this woman, you know, again, she was from, from a very obviously sophisticated, cultured, educated family in Iran lost everything. You know, ground zero didn't speak French had the, you know, start from the beginning. So someone like that I really admire, you know, and there's still always looking over her shoulder well she's, you know, I think she's okay but it was, I was an honor to meet her and hear her story. Kate Farrell just has a comment she says I really enjoy hearing your enthusiasm about real life research. It does seem that you've drawn a lot of your what you've written from people, you know, it helps you know people, you have networks in Paris. I am kind of curious, are you looking forward. I love the way that your, your main character grows and changes and is part of history part of current events as these books progress. Are you looking forward to writing any books that deal with the other things that have happened like the Ebdo massacre or the, the, the massacre, the, the attacks on, you know, that took place on, I was it 2016 or what year was it we reserve Yes. First of all, thank you. Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that. You know, I, I'm just up to 2001. I have no idea those things happen later I think I've got a full plate with what was going on. I don't know I like being, you know, when we were paying in Frank's, it feels a little more innocent when Google, you didn't just Google the answer. I don't like that. I don't know. But I think all the seeds of what happened. You know, later we're, we're happening then, you know, it didn't, it didn't, nothing occurs in a vacuum. So I believe all that was there present all these, you know, tensions and culture clashes and whatever. Whoever did these, you know, Charlie Ebdo, or who did the Bataclan I mean those were different to those were jihadi kids from Brussels who drove down I mean, and you know whatever it is, but, but there is a there is a when my first book murder in the 1993. There was a huge blue collar movement or you know feelings against the Jews and I mean not so much the Jews and but Arabs, you know, and, but I mean France has this colonial legacy of Vietnam, you know, Indochina, North Africa, you know, and all this so they need to welcome all these people and also Senegal and, you know, they need to welcome them but you know they're taking their jobs. I mean a man in the Marais was saying they're taking our jobs. This was 1993. So I don't you know that immigrate phobia was has been there for a long time. I don't think it's anything new. In, in my standalone thriller three hours in Paris. I got to go away from, from Amy and fashion and go to, you know, have an American sniper who was from Backwoods, Oregon, to get out there, you know, and, you know, recruited and sent on a suicide mission to shoot him Hitler, spoiler alert she missed. But the rest of the story, you know, the cat and mouse and how she's passed to, you know, also save, save the British from invasion. I was very much real. You know, I put an American there because I just wanted to make it hard for her. But, you know, all that was there. It's just, you know, what's highlighted, you know, history is written by what do they say the victors right so. Hitler did go to Paris for three hours. He never returned to the men that were with him in his group which you can Google and watch them on YouTube do this tour. Arno, Arno Brecker the sculptor and Albert Spear the armaments architect were with him after survived the war and later wrote two different accounts and two different dates of being there with him and they're in the picture so I think there was a story there so I think it's about taking what you sense what you feel what you hear what seems to be the mood at the time and trying to be real and truthful to that time. I read about Paris in 2001, I feel it's only fair to, to hopefully, you know, have it reflect that as much as I can make it, you know, because otherwise, why, why write it, you know what I mean. I'm not saying I'm the expert but I think you need to reflect that time or that mind set up, maybe even certain groups. Kara right you're really you know through the series the 20 books you're really almost like mapping the city. And so I was going to ask about, you know, particularly because this also had something a real event that you were relating to. I don't want to speak to you in such a way that you choose that location to place your book, or have there been other specific events that became are really the focal point of the other books. How does it all. Well more I only had to a rendezvous month left so I had to pick one of them and that I'm working on the other ones so. So if I'm going to write that a rendezvous month I really wanted it to dictate the story, you know, why it would happen here what kind of crime happens here. Why who lives here who would be affected why would Amy be there you know all that, you know to make it thread it thread it together. And that's what I found you know I was like how do I, I was, how do I know everyone's, it's so boring here it's just families and how you know how can I pick out something and what can I use what you know then I started meeting people who live there I had them. I walked around with them I said, What was it like when you were growing up, you know and there's always these great stories, you know and it's really just about typical Parisians, you know, who lived their lives and you know what ordinary person dealing with extraordinary events which really was what I felt. And I felt, you know, I really struggled with that though how am I going to make this place interesting I didn't have to make it interesting actually when I started digging. I could find things you know that were fascinating and, and they had a different kind of history you know George brass Sam the folk singer. And he, he lived there, you know, he hung out there. There's an old cafe we got into that they only open and we're eating P off used to go where all those kind of you know Johnny Holland all those, those people would go and they have their pictures on the wall and it's like it came out in 1960, and, but they're you know they only open it for a certain time of the day, and it's like you have to know a code word, you know, dirty French, you know. So I mean those kind of things were really great to find, as you could find anywhere right you just have to go down and dig and deep and you know. But again, it's it's it really. It felt to me that you know that Amy's dealing with family issues. This place is all about family and also one thing we didn't discuss is it's another theme is witnessing. Because in this story, people see things people are witnesses. And when I talked to the fleaks. They said people lie to us people lie all the time. When I talked to a cop here people lie. Right. When I, I mean, when I was speeding and the cops post me over but oh but I wasn't you know I you know right I mean we you know we all lie right I mean, and especially there's a young teenager in this. You know who's caught smoking you know and and which you know in France they still don't want their kids to smoke but. And you know I was like I remember when I was hiding in my room my mother would come you know that's not smoke, you know, you know we all have. We all lie, you know, and why would you lie why why do you think you'd lie if you witnessed a crime or you witness someone running away or whatever reason. And why would you lie and I said to cops and he said there's 100 reasons, you know. First of all, you'd lie about that because if you said you were there, you could first of all risk that danger from the person if that's what you felt it depends. You could risk that you weren't supposed to be there you're playing hooky from work, you know you should have been at work. You were, you shouldn't be you were having an affair and you don't want your wife to fight I mean there's, you were you know whatever you know so many reasons you don't want to you know witness and help because you put yourself at risk and what is but what is our responsibility of being a witness, you know we all have a responsibility. Do we do we honor it or you know not or do we have to be constantly pulled in until Amy can get the truth out of someone what did you really see come on you know because that's sometimes what you have to say you know, I won't tell anyone you won't get in trouble just tell me what happened someone's life is at stake. You know you got to get down there and dirty to get them to tell you. And, and, and really witnessing. You know, it's just, it has it's fraught with with a lot of issues I think it's complicated. I mean I hope that if I saw something I would, I would be honest. I hope I would, you know, depending where I was, right. This, this might actually lead to the next question which is again from Kate. I'm looking forward to reading the new book and wonder how motherhood is affecting Amy, which since you brought up teenagers and truth telling and all that that might kind of dovetail nicely. Yeah. Well we've gone through the whole thing of Amy finding out she's pregnant dealing with her pregnancy, having a baby by herself and then melloc the biological father, you know, getting horny and trying to get we've had all these sagas and now we're at where they've sort of come to some kind of sort of relationship but she doesn't feel that great about it but he's, but melloc is a good father when he's there, you know, when it suits him but he's, I mean he will, you know, he can, you know, he will do it he's very and Chloe loves him. So, and Amy is grateful that he's around that he's someone she can depend on she doesn't, you know she misses Chloe but I mean it's nice to know. But she doesn't really want to move to Brittany so that he brings a whole other layer of complication. And she's always thinking about her because she is always hoping that she will never make the mistakes or be like her mother, you know, and that's something she's always dealing with. And two books ago, she was also, of course, you're always dealing with this and your guilt is a mother that you're not there you have to work or all those other things but she's, there was one part where she realized that it's also how she is wired. You know, and I think that was a great realization for her I think it was two books ago where, I mean, here is Boris here is the man who was like Chloe's babysitter a man she loved a man who's there for her who went to get Chloe's birthday present, who who has Chloe on the face of his phone. Okay, he loves her who goes to get her birthday present, and he's accused right or wrong of doing this, you know, and how you know she knows she's wired in a way that she will not let this go and she she's not going to stay home, you know, she can find she and Chloe has a wonderful babysitter party. She has a great network. So Chloe is not abandoned but that's how she's, she sort of realized I'm wired that way but of course she's always, you know, there's a push and pull I think, as a mother feels no matter what you do, you always do something wrong. One day, the one day I never picked, I was late picking my son up from school in second grade the one day. And I couldn't, I didn't have a cell phone. He, I mean he's 33 years old he tells me about that. The one day, you know, you're always going to get something. I said like, but what about all the zillion other times I was there, but no, you know, anyway. A question from Barbara Benjamin. I recently saw a panel of mystery writers, one of whom said she stopped writing books in her previous series because she said series are a harder sell these days. Do you think this is so and why I don't find that. I think people like series at least that's what my editor tells me we all have different experiences I don't know what she, what the author writes you know what kind of mysteries. But I think you can write one series and then start writing another series too. But I think a lot of the editor, my editor, that's all I know is my editor says, I like series because we have one that we know we can get to the next one, you know, doesn't mean you're going to write 20 like I have but I mean, you know it's nice to. I mean, I like to read series, but I think it's about keeping a series fresh and keeping it. Yeah, keeping it fresh and interesting and being excited about it. And yet bringing that wonderful cast of characters that we know and love, you know, and let's be with them again. I mean that's what I feel literally about series I love I love Deborah Cromby writes about England. I mean, they're not a series now I mean, they've had marriages and extended families and can't I mean they've cancer and custody and they've had this whole family saga many years, but I love to be with those people but Deborah does not write the same story every time it's always a segment, you know, where the family is at that time. And I said so damn you know when I was how much backstory do you put it how much does the reader need to know about all the, you know, long, you know all the family and everything. And she goes, I only put in what is relevant to this story. You know, which makes sense. You know if you want to read, you know, you need to read this story and get who these people are get this world and like it it doesn't hinge on the other stories. You know, series reader will go to it because it does him, you know, we're going in that world. So, because I said, Oh, I love when she's always fighting, can we have the sister back when she fits the story. So I think that's a really good rule of thumb. You can write series multiple series, as long as it's fresh, and you put in enough backstory just to as needed. There is a, hold on just a minute. Kate Farrell also wants to congratulate you on the LA Times, getting the LA Times pick for the top mystery books this winter. Thank you. I just saw that thank you. Yeah, Kara also I mean I just love how you've got this macro world of the political world and then you just go deep down into the personal stories of each of these really colorful characters and the whole her very colorful extended family. And also just the very particular there's there's a there's a moment, because I'm reading, I have to read the galley, you know where may is she's outside the beginning of a chapter and she's double knotting her scarf. And it's like, Oh, double knotting a scarf you've got to just imagine that you're the French, the lady French ladies with their small scars that you have to just double knot that scar from in the chill of the night and it's like, you can just imagine, you're doing that and I just want to talk to you to talk about capturing, you know, the essence of a Parisian woman and Parisian culture, and some of the fun things that you've discovered along the way to putting your books. Yeah, thank you a lot. Thank you. I mean, I, you know, I of course I'm not stylish as a man, but I think, Amy, to me, you know, I want I go window shopping with her in Paris, you know, she's always on my shoulder now. You know, because it's fun, right, it's like this person like you wear that wouldn't you or, and I found this one maternity store where they have the coolest hippest, you know, female and French Parisian maternity I was like, I can't really be wearing this. It was really fun, but I think, I mean, I think the Parisian, the Parisian look that I admire is the look that looks effortless, right. Effortlessly thrown together to sold yet perfect, you know, great sheet and yet you know they just, and they have a few really good pieces in their wardrobe. You know, and it's, you know, and they mix and match and put things together it's not like they're constantly buying couture brand names, you know, they have good quality pieces, and they work with that. And I think to do that is real, real fashion sense, you know, I mean, that's what Coco Chanel was always saying you have a good piece, you know, you work with it. So Amy can go to the Port De Van Flee Market. I don't know if the ladies in there anymore there used to be a lady who had vintage Chanel, mostly Chanel, and it was like, Oh my God, even that was beyond my, you know, out of my wreck. But it was good stuff, you know, cleaned and and everything and you could even stand and try things on, you know, and it was it was real I mean it was. And she took very good care of these pieces I mean, you know, you would buy it if you could, you know, because it's an investment piece, you know, she didn't need to tell me that I could see it. You could wear a little nubby, you know the Chanel jacket that you could put on with the sewage you could wear with jeans you could do whatever you want right that last you forever it's timeless you know. So I mean I think that kind of look is what she's kind of learns by osmosis right I mean it's, you know I don't have it but she's born with it that's all I can say. I think that her friend, Martin's clothes because they're the same size and the same shoe size which is, you know, Martin has that like those velvet. If someone runs smoking jackets. You know she can just borrow that right, which you want a friend like that that would the jacket that we fit you. And in this in me wears a leather catsuit that I've gotten a lot of comments from people who read this book, because it's perfect for roof work and while you're out of the roof on doing surveillance. And come on, I mean you want a little good right. It was really fun to write that scene. Why the question I had for some of the writers that are in the audience, you know, we your book at you know you on page one, you know she's sitting in that cafe and then how something's going to happen and then you know it's like a horse race you're running. And so my question to you is, how as a writer, do you keep up that suspenseful pace. Do you have certain techniques that you utilize to really keep that it's a momentum that you know in a good mystery novel it's going to, it just keeps you going and keeps you going to the next page, which is, it's really a it's miraculous to me. I don't know that I plan that but I think I remember what a lot of like Stephen King or all these books and writing I've read, you know, it's always about asking a story question. You know the first page there's a story question and the reader wants to book I want to read you know what you know here's a story question what's going to happen so you want to turn the page and find out. There's, there's many techniques but I just try. I try to write scenes when I'm writing, you know, a scene where Amy is with Renee and they're in the cafe and they're discussing something and they put to put something together and they have a new line of inquiry or new evidence has someone calls with the new information. So then they go on to the next, you know, locale or whatever. And, you know, of course, that would be something that's a piece of a piece of the puzzle, right, it's not. So you're still thinking that while you're you're investigating she's not a cop she's a private eye or but it's her friend, while you're trying to find, you know what happened what you're investigating you're just finding and assembling these little pieces and by trying to put the puzzle together so you can always be in the detective with you know leave a unanswered question at the end of the chapter. As a detective, you wouldn't know either, right, you would, you know, so it feels, I feel kind of truthful, you know, it's kind of where you'd be. So I think you're raising questions. And you're letting the reader. Sometimes I was in the writing group and this woman said, Oh, I know she took the last line off of my chapter, it was perfect. Sometimes we explain too much, but you know what I mean. So sometimes a little less is more but not neglecting fleshing out a character or providing deep insight, you know. But again, it's kind of leaving questions because we're not, we don't have to answer them. We have to propose them. I think, I think that helps. I'm no, I'm no expert. Great. Thank you. Any other questions for Kara before we sign off. Oh, only a comment from someone saying I like series. And my only comment is I think that's so long, you know, as long as long form, particularly on, you know, on TV is popular, I think I don't see why, why book series would go out of style, it seems to the styles seem to complement each other. I do not see any other questions or comments. I have one quick question. Kara, have any of your books been offered or contracted for film or movies. Yeah, the Amy books have been optioned yet again. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it will happen. It would be really nice if it was so. Great. Well, I want to thank Kara black for joining us again. We're going to keep you all in suspense for the next week. It will be out in bookstores and available on March 15. So, so, MFC. Here it is. Yes, we'll both hold the book up. Get that close up here. And thank you for explaining about about the books and the book market that's that's a that was a wonderful locale. So, well, thank you for letting inviting me and thank you for coming and thank you Laura and and Pat and Kate nice to see you and, you know, hope to see you all in person right. Okay, I'll be on so