Chicago literary event features best-selling authors for evening of networking

Two award-winning mystery writers, Jamie Freveletti and Wendy Corsi Staub, are pairing up for a Chicago Literati event, a networking evening of mingling, brainstorming and collaborating.

Chicago author Freveletti will be on hand to discuss the newest in her series of international thrillers featuring Emma Caldridge in her latest novel, "The Ninth Day" (Harper 2011; $9.99). Caldridge who uses her skills as an ultra marathon runner and biochemist to solve crimes, now finds herself once again working with special agent Cameron Sumner and security contractor Edward Banner, this time to head off a Mexican drug-lord destroying America with poisoned drugs.

"I learned several fascinating facts while researching my newest novel," says Freveletti, who like Caldridge is an elite ultra marathon runner but is a lawyer instead of biochemist. "One is that cartels in Mexico have increased their grip on the country to an extent that seemed almost impossible just a few years before. The fact that these cartels actually control entire cities was new to me. In one instance they blockaded a key intersection, causing gridlock, and then gunned down rivals on the other side, safe in the knowledge that no ambulance or police officer would be able to respond."

Staub, author of more than 70 books who writes her suspense novels under her own name and pens women's fiction under her pseudonym Wendy Markham, has written her latest "Hell to Pay" (Avon 2011; $7.99) as both a stand-alone novel and the conclusion of a trilogy that began with "Live to Tell" and "Scared to Death."

The third book picks up 15 years after the first story, continuing the story of Lucy Walsh and Jeremy Cavalon, both of whom survived a serial killer and are now married and expecting for the first time. After the seemingly accidental death of Jeremy's adoptive grandmother, the two move into her apartment. But it's more than fate that brought them there as they soon find out.