Rendezvous Eighteenth marks the emergence of an exciting voice in crime fiction. Ricky Jenks gave up life in the U.S. years ago and is content, if not happy, with his life as a piano player in a small café in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. He has many friends among the other African-Americans living in Paris and is happily, if casually, involved with a French Muslim woman. But then everything changes. His American life comes crashing down on him when his estranged cousin wants help finding his runaway wife, whom he thinks might have come to Paris, even though he's vague about why. That same night Ricky finds a prostitute dead in his apartment building in Paris's Eighteenth Arrondissment, one of the most multicultural sections of Paris. That these two events could be connected is something he never imagines. This intricate, absorbing thriller is ultimately much more than a suspense novel. Lamar's detailed and vibrant portrait of life in Paris is as much the story of a black man's alienation and redemption-indeed, the story of an entire community searching for a home-as it is a taut thriller about revenge, obsession, and murder

Rendezvous Eighteenth

Literature & Fiction

Lamar, Jake

United States

Minotaur Books

Marva Dobbs has a life most people would envy. An American who has lived in Paris for most of her adult life, she runs a popular African-American soul food restaurant, and her thirty-year marriage has produced a beautiful grown-up daughter. So why is she jeopardizing everything for a fling with her sous-chef, a mysterious twenty-eight-year-old Algerian man named Hassan? Marva begins to ask herself the same question when she returns from summer vacation to find that Hassan is missing, and that he is the main suspect in the investigation into the bombing of a building in Paris that left one man dead. And then she disappears, leaving her bewildered daughter and secretive husband to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Ghosts of Saint-Michel is the talented Jake Lamar's second romantic thriller to be set in the bohemian Eighteenth Arrondissement of the City of Light.

Ghosts of Saint-Michel

An African-American expat gets drawn into the murder of a prostitute in his bohemian Paris neighborhood in Jake Lamar's introduction to a series of atmospheric thrillers set in the City of Lights

Rendezvous Eighteenth (American Mysteries in Paris, 1)

Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir

A stunning memoir of a gifted young middle-class black man and his struggle to succeed in white America. Born in 1961, Jake Lamar was unable to escape a heritage of racism despite being well-educated and accomplished. Here Lamar, a former associate editor for Time magazine, illuminates the ironies of integration and America's history of prejudice.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Plume

The Last Integrationist

Random House Value Publishing

Jake Lamar's combustible, visionary, provocative novel explores the ambiguities of race in America as the first black politician with a real shot at the White House fights for his political career and, ultimately, his own soul.

Crown

In the tradition of Bebe Moore Campbell, Terry McMillan, and E. Lynn Harris, author Jake Lamar has created a riveting novel of three young couples whose lives intersect in curious ways. And the question that torments all of them: What is a black man? Hal Hardaway is a young black executive, struggling to get along with Corky Winterset, his white girlfriend, who holds him in "constant suspicion of machismo." Walker DuPree, Hal's former roommate, is wrestling with his mixed racial heritage while trying to avoid marriage to his persistent black girlfriend, Sadie Broom. Dr. Emmett Mercy, self-help guru and author of Blactualization: Everyday Strategies for Reconnecting with Your Authentic African-American Self, is obsessed with gaining fame and fortune--at any cost. Meanwhile, his wife LaTonya shares a secret, sordid history with Hal. The story moves from New York to Paris, from Amsterdam to Craven, Delaware, finally culminating on the eve of one of the defining events of our time: the verdict in O.J. Simpson's criminal trial. Using the public spectacle of the celebrated murder case in counterpoint to the private lives of his characters, Jake Lamar--one of America's most original writers--paints a stunning portrait of a society grappling with fundamental problems of race and sex, identity and justice.

Close to the Bone: A Novel

In the wee hours of the morning, a phone call awakens Clay Robinette, once a disgraced reporter, now a happily married, happily tenured black professor. The caller is Reggie Brogus, a famous black militant who, after a mysterious seven-year exile, remade himself as a fire-breathing conservative professor. There's a dead body in Reggie's office and he's sure it's the work of government agents looking to frame him for his radical past. He needs Clay's help and trusts Clay's wry sense of humor and famous cool head to get him out of trouble. But Clay, dragged out of his bed into the winter night, recognizes the victim -- Jennifer Wolfsheim, aka Pirate Jenny, Clay's student and, for a brief time, his mistress. Knowing he too could be implicated in Jenny's death, Clay tries to cover up his knowledge of the murder; he gives Reggie a ride out of town, goes home, and gets back into bed as though the whole episode were a nightmare. But when he wakes up in the morning, his life slowly but surely begins to fall apart. Dragged into the nvestigation in spite of himself, Clay knows he must unmask the killer before he becomes the prime suspect. Is Reggie guilty after all? Is the murder indeed linked to the FBI and a long-ago counterintelligence operation? Or is the killer someone with a sterling reputation and a hidden sadistic streak? Part whodunit, part conspiracy thriller, part social satire, If 6 Were 9 is a funny, fast-paced novel filled with vibrant characters, unexpected plot twists, and provocative ideas about the complexities of race and politics in America.

If 6 Were 9: A "Militant" Mystery

The author, a successful journalist, describes his efforts to come to terms with his father and the sometimes subtle racism of modern society

Summit Books

Viper's Dream

Genre Fiction

No Exit Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lamar, Jake. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lamar, Jake

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lamar, Jake. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Rendezvous Eighteenth

Ghosts of Saint-Michel

Rendezvous Eighteenth (American Mysteries in Paris, 1)

Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir

The Last Integrationist

The Last Integrationist

Close to the Bone: A Novel

If 6 Were 9: A "Militant" Mystery

Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir

Viper's Dream