The Blog

Cara Black – NYT and USA Today Bestselling Author

Feb 7, 2023 | Featured Author

Debbie Harpham

cara-black-three-hours

from author’s website

Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 20 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, and two World War II-set novels featuring American markswoman Kate Rees. Cara 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.

Cara was born in Chicago but has lived in California’s Bay Area since she was five years old. Before turning to writing full-time, she tried her hand at a number of jobs: she was a barista in the Basel train station café in Switzerland, taught English in Japan, studied Buddhism in Dharamsala in Northern India, and worked as a bar girl in Bangkok (only pouring drinks!). After studying Chinese history at Sophia University in Tokyo—where she met her husband, Jun, a bookseller, potter, and amateur chef—she obtained her teaching credential at San Francisco State College, and went on to work as a preschool director and then as an agent of the federally funded Head Start program, which sent her into San Francisco’s Chinatown to help families there—often sweatshop workers—secure early care and early education for their children. Each of these jobs was amazing and educational in a different way, and the Aimée Leduc books are covered in fingerprints of Cara’s various experiences.

Her love of all things French was kindled by the French-speaking nuns at her Catholic high school, where Cara first encountered French literature and went crazy for the work of Prix Goncourt winner Romain Gary. Her junior year in high school, she wrote him a fan letter—which he answered, and which inspired her to make her first trip to Paris, where her idol took her out for coffee and a cigar. Since then, she has been to Paris many, many times. On each visit she entrenches herself in a different part of the city, learning its secret history. She has posed as a journalist to sneak into closed areas, trained at a firing range with real Paris flics, gotten locked in a bathroom at the Victor Hugo museum, and—just like Aimée—gone down into the sewers with the rats (she can never pass up an opportunity to see something new, even when the timing isn’t ideal—she was headed to a fancy dinner right afterwards and had a spot of bother with her shoes). For the scoop on real Paris crime, she takes the flics out for drinks and dinner to hear their stories—but it usually turns into a long evening, which is why she sticks with espresso.

ABOUT THREE HOURS IN PARIS:

In June of 1940, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Hitler spent a total of three hours in the City of Light—abruptly leaving, never to return. To this day, no one knows why.

Kate Rees, a young American markswoman, has been recruited by British intelligence to drop into Paris with a dangerous assignment: assassinate the Führer. Wrecked by grief after a Luftwaffe bombing killed her husband and infant daughter, she is armed with a rifle, a vendetta, and a fierce resolve. But other than rushed and rudimentary instruction, she has no formal spy training. Thrust into the red-hot center of the war, a country girl from rural Oregon finds herself holding the fate of the world in her hands. When Kate misses her mark and the plan unravels, Kate is on the run for her life—all the time wrestling with the suspicion that the whole operation was a set-up.

New York Times bestselling author Cara Black is at her best as she brings Occupation-era France to vivid life in this masterful, pulse-pounding story about one young woman with the temerity—and drive—to take on Hitler himself.

Available now in paperback. Purchase your copy here.

PRAISE AND RECOGNITION FOR THREE HOURS IN PARIS:

A National Bestseller
Wall Street Journal Best Mystery of 2020
Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020
Seattle Times Best Crime Novel of 2020
Finalist for the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence
An ABA Indie Next Pick for April 2020
An Amazon Best of the Month Pick for April 2020
A Barnes and Noble Monthly Pick for April 2021

“Black constructs a surprise-filled plot, fueled by breathless pacing, Alan Furst-like atmosphere, and a textured look at Resistance fighters in Paris… Black stretches her wings here, soaring to new heights.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Riveting… Black keeps the suspense high throughout. Fans of The Day of the Jackal won’t want to miss this heart-stopping thriller.”—Publishers Weekly

“Black excels at setting vivid scenes, creating lively characters and maintaining pulse-elevating suspense. Three Hours in Paris, with its timetable structure and its hunt for a covert operative, recalls such comparable works as Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal and Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle.”—Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal

“The premise is that an American female sharpshooter is parachuted into France to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Of course, she fails. Using wits alone, she must evade the Gestapo and make it back across the English Channel. Chances of success? Slim to none. Chances that you’ll be able to put Black’s thriller down once you’ve picked it up? Also slim to none… This is one of those espionage thrillers for which the word ‘taut’ was invented.”—Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post

“Beyond Black’s encyclopedic knowledge of Paris, her deft interweaving of WWII history and spycraft with a relatable female protagonist puts Three Hours in Paris on par with other top thrillers about botched missions followed by harrowing escapes—such masterworks as Frederick Forsythe’s The Day of the Jackal, Jack Higgins’ The Eagle Has Landed and Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games.”—Paula Woods, Los Angeles Times

“As the author of 19 murder mysteries set in Paris, Black knows the city’s hidden squares and winding alleys. The wartime city and its grim undercurrent of fear are evocatively portrayed… Three Hours in Paris is reminiscent of Alan Furst at his best.”—Financial Times

“Both a stunning and brilliant work of imagination, and a tour de force of rigorous research… fraught with tension and suspense… this is an extremely engaging story; that there is an emotional depth to the large cast of characters that is often quite moving; and that with this novelBlack has taken an ambitious, and a risky step forward in her career as a writer—and a very successful one.”—Bonjour Paris

“Cara Black is best known for her contemporary Aimée Leduc investigations series, but this stand-alone, with its resourceful, all-American heroine and breathless pace, allows her to flex a different muscle, aided by her deep knowledge of and affinity for all things French… this is a superior thriller with much to offer fans of World War II spy fiction drawn to intriguing what-if scenarios.”—Air Mail

AUTHOR VISITS:

Author visits with Cara Black are available via staging.novelsandbox.com/our-authors/.