David Corbett with Cara Black

The Bindery hosts a special afternoon event with David Corbett (The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday) and Cara Black (Murder on the Left Bank) for their new books. Please join us!

The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday
by David Corbett

The most notorious love letters in American history–supposedly destroyed a century ago—mysteriously reappear and become the coveted prize in a fierce battle for possession that brings back to life the lawless world evoked in the letters themselves.

Lisa Balamaro is an ambitious arts lawyer with a secret crush on her most intriguing client: former rodeo rider and reformed art forger, Tuck Mercer. In his newfound role as an expert in Old West artifacts, Tuck gains possession of the supposedly destroyed correspondence between Doc Holliday and his cousin and childhood sweetheart, Mattie—who would become Sister Mary Melanie of the Sisters of Mercy.

Given the unlikelihood the letters can ever be fully authenticated, Tuck retains Lisa on behalf of the letters’ owner, Rayella Vargas, to sell them on the black market. But the buyer Tuck finds, a duplicitous judge from the Tombstone area, has other, far more menacing ideas.

As Lisa works feverishly to make things right, Rayella secretly enlists her ex-marine boyfriend in a daring scheme of her own.

When the judge learns he’s been blindsided, he rallies a cadre of armed men for a deadly standoff reminiscent of the moment in history that made Doc famous: The Gunfight at the OK Corral.

David Corbett worked for the San Francisco private investigation firm of Palladino & Sutherland, and played a significant part in a number of high-profile criminal and civil litigations, as well as numerous other drug, murder, and fraud cases. Corbett is the author of The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime, Blood of Paradise, Do They Know I’m Running? The Mercy of the Night, The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell. His short fiction stories have appeared twice in Best American Mystery Stories. He also contributed chapters to The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet, serial audio thrillers that now have been combined into a single hard cover version titled Watchlist. In 2013 he published his writing guide The Art of Character, which national bestseller Elizabeth Brundage called “a writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” He teaches and gives seminars and workshops at conferences throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico; he’s a regular contributor to the writers’ blog Writer Unboxed; and his articles on craft and theory have appeared in the New York Times, Narrative, Writer’s Digest (where he is a contributing editor), The Writer, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, Bright Ideas, Crimespree and other outlets.

Murder on the Left Bank
by Cara Black

A confession fifty years in the making puts everyone’s favorite Paris d t ctive tr’s chic, Aim e Leduc, on a collision course with the “Hand,” a cabal of corrupt Parisian cops among who masterminded her father’s murder–and among whose ranks he might have once found membership. When a friend’s child is kidnapped while wearing her daughter’s hoodie, Aim e realizes that the case has crossed into the realm of the personal in more ways than one.

A dying man drags his oxygen machine into the office of ric Besson, a lawyer in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. The old man, an accountant, is carrying a dilapidated notebook full of meticulous investment records. For decades, he has been helping a cadre of dirty cops launder stolen money. The notebook contains his full confession–he’s waited 50 years to make it, and now it can’t wait another day. He is adamant that Besson get the notebook into the hands of La Proc, Paris’s chief prosecuting attorney, so the corruption can finally be brought to light. But en route to La Proc, Besson’s courier–his assistant and nephew–is murdered, and the notebook disappears.

Grief-stricken ric Besson tries to hire private investigator Aim e Leduc to find the notebook, but she is reluctant to get involved. Her father was a cop and was murdered by the same dirty syndicate the notebook implicates. She’s not sure which she’s more afraid of, the dangerous men who would kill for the notebook or the idea that her father’s name might be among the dirty cops listed within it. Ultimately that’s the reason she must take the case, which leads her across the Left Bank, from the Cambodian enclave of Khmer Rouge refugees to the ancient royal tapestry factories to the modern art galleries.

Cara Black is the author of eighteen books in the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc series. She has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, and her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.

Please note: this event will be at The Bindery, 1727 Haight.

Bar opens with doors at 2, event begins at 4pm.

RSVP appreciated but not required.