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Cara Black (author)

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This article is about the author. For the tennis player, see Cara Black.
Cara Black
Black at the 2016 Texas Book Festival
Black at the 2016 Texas Book Festival
Born (1951-11-14) November 14, 1951 (age 72)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
OccupationNovelist
GenreCrime
Notable worksAimée Leduc mystery novels
Website
carablack.com

Cara Black (born November 14, 1951)[1] is an American mystery writer. She is best known for the twenty-one novel mystery series featuring Aimée Leduc a female Paris-based private investigator,[2] as well as the thrillers Three Hours in Paris, a national bestseller, and Night Flight to Paris. Black is included in the Great Women Mystery Writers by Elizabeth Lindsay 2nd edition.[3] Her first novel Murder in the Marais was nominated for an Anthony Award for best first novel[4] and the third novel in the series, Murder in the Sentier, was Anthony-nominated for Best Novel.[3] Her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.[citation needed]

Biography

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Black was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 14, 1951. She was educated at Cañada College in California, Sophia University in Yotsuya, Tokyo in Japan, and finished her schooling at San Francisco State University where she earned a bachelor's and master's degrees in education.

She did not base her detective Aimée Leduc on a real person:

I knew I couldn’t write as a French woman, I can’t even tie my scarf the right way," she says, "but I grew up in a Francophile family; my father loved good food and wine, I attended a Catholic school with French nuns and I lived in Europe when I was younger. I interviewed three female detectives in Paris who ran their own detective agency and took qualities from each. It was important to me that Aimée be a young, contemporary woman like the Parisian women I know, have a strong fashion sense and be fierce in her pursuit of justice. The justice that eludes people sometimes in daily life. And that she know much more about computers than I do.[5]

She did not intend to write a series.

I'd like to say I had a master plan but the series with Aimée Leduc has just evolved. "In Murder in the Marais, my first book, I just wanted to tell the story of my friend's mother, a young Jewish girl who hid in the Marais during the German Occupation of Paris in WWII. My friend's mother was 14 years old and came home from school one day to find her family gone. She stayed in the apartment, went to school, hoping they would return. A year later, in 1944 at Liberation, she searched for them at the train stations, at the Hotel Lutetia on the Left Bank where the Red Cross had a terminus center for returning deportees and she found they’d gone to Auschwitz. My friend told me this story one day in the Marais and it touched me. Years later when I returned to Paris in the mid-1990s the story came back to me and I wanted to explore these issues of the past, lingering anti-Semitism and how war still touched every generation.[5]

She has worked as a preschool teacher and as director of a preschool.[1] Black lives in San Francisco with her husband, Jun Ishimuro, a bookseller. They have a son.[3][6]

Awards

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Awards for Black's writing[7]
Year Title Award Result Ref.
2000 Murder in the Marais Anthony Award for Best First Novel Finalist
Macavity Award for Best First Novel Finalist [8]
2003 Murder in the Sentier Anthony Award for Best Novel Finalist
2014 Murder Below Montparnasse Left Coast Crime Calamari Award Finalist

Works

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Aimée Leduc Series

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  • Murder in the Marais (1998), ISBN 1-56947-212-2.[9]
  • Murder in Belleville (2000), ISBN 1-56947-279-3.[10]
  • Murder in the Sentier (2002), ISBN 1-56947-331-5.[11]
  • Murder in the Bastille (2003), ISBN 1-56947-364-1.[12]
  • Murder in Clichy (2004), ISBN 1-56947-411-7.[13]
  • Murder in Montmartre (2005), ISBN 1-56947-445-1.[14]
  • Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis (2007), ISBN 1-56947-475-3.[15]
  • Murder in the Rue de Paradis (2008), ISBN 1-56947-542-3.[16]
  • Murder in the Latin Quarter (2009), ISBN 1-56947-541-5.[17]
  • Murder in the Palais Royal (2010), ISBN 978-1-56947-883-7.[18]
  • Murder in Passy (2011), ISBN 1-56947-882-1.[19]
  • Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (2011), ISBN 978-1-61695-061-3.[20]
  • Murder below Montparnasse (2013), ISBN 978-1-61695-215-0.[21]
  • Murder in Pigalle (2014), ISBN 978-1-48296-837-8.[22]
  • Murder on the Champ de Mars (2015), ISBN 978-1-61695-286-0.[23]
  • Murder on the Quai (2016), ISBN 978-1-61695-678-3.[24]
  • Murder in Saint-Germain (2017), ISBN 978-1-61695-770-4.[25]
  • Murder on the Left Bank (2018), ISBN 978-1-61695-927-2.[26]
  • Murder in Bel-Air (2019), ISBN 978-1-61695-930-2.[27]
  • Murder at the Porte de Versailles (2022), ISBN 978-1-64129-043-2.[28]
  • Murder at La Villette (2024), ISBN 978-1-64129-447-8.[29]

Other Novels

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References

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  1. ^ a b Elizabeth Blakesley Lindsay (2007). Great Women Mystery Writers. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-313-33428-3.
  2. ^ "Aimée Léduc". thrillingdetective.com. Archived from the original on September 30, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  3. ^ a b c "About Cara Black". carablack.com. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  4. ^ "CVCO—Overbooked Mystery—Mystery nominations 1999". overbooked.org. Archived from the original on August 15, 2009. Retrieved May 21, 2009.
  5. ^ a b "Interview with Cara Black – ParisVoice". 8 May 2012. Archived from the original on 8 October 2018. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  6. ^ Guthmann, Edward (5 April 2007). "San Francisco's femme fatale / Murders most Parisian, brought to you by Cara Black". Sfgate. Archived from the original on 8 October 2018. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  7. ^ "Cara Black". Stop, You're Killing Me!. Archived from the original on 2023-06-05. Retrieved 2024-05-09.
  8. ^ "Macavity Awards". Mystery Readers International. Archived from the original on 2019-04-05. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  9. ^ "Murder in the Marais by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2003-11-01. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  10. ^ "Murder in Belleville-C by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2000-10-02. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  11. ^ "MURDER IN THE SENTIER: An Aimée Leduc Investigation by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2002-03-11. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  12. ^ "MURDER IN THE BASTILLE by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2003-01-27. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  13. ^ "MURDER IN CLICHY by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2004-12-20. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  14. ^ "Murder in Montmartre: An Aime Leduc Investigation by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2005-12-05. Archived from the original on 2023-12-08. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  15. ^ "Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2007-01-08. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  16. ^ "Murder in the Rue de Paradis by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2007-11-26. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  17. ^ "Murder in the Latin Quarter by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2008-12-22. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  18. ^ "Murder in the Palais Royal by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2010-01-04. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  19. ^ "Murder in Passy by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2011-01-24. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  20. ^ "Murder at the Lanterne Rouge by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2012-01-23. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  21. ^ "Murder Below Montparnasse by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2013-01-28. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  22. ^ "Murder in Pigalle by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2014-01-13. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  23. ^ "Murder on the Champ de Mars by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2015-01-26. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  24. ^ "Murder on the Quai by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2016-04-18. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  25. ^ "Murder in Saint-Germain by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2017-04-24. Archived from the original on 2023-05-30. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  26. ^ "Murder on the Left Bank by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2018-04-02. Archived from the original on 2023-05-30. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  27. ^ "Murder in Bel-Air by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2019-03-26. Archived from the original on 2023-09-25. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  28. ^ "Murder at the Porte de Versailles by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2021-12-07. Archived from the original on 2024-05-10. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  29. ^ "Murder at La Villette by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2024-01-03. Archived from the original on 2024-01-27. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  30. ^ "Three Hours in Paris by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2020-01-22. Archived from the original on 2023-05-30. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  31. ^ "Night Flight to Paris by Cara Black". Publishers Weekly. 2023-01-06. Archived from the original on 2023-05-30. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
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