Hi! I’m Lane Sanders, aide to the 1930s mayor of New York City, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. My life is busy trying to keep up with my boss. Despite the fact that he’s five-foot-two, his personality is bigger than life and I have to run at top speed in my red Mary-Janes to keep tabs on him. There isn’t a reporter alive who can find enough storm superlatives to accurately address how he’s attacked the corruption, the gangsters, and the crime in our city.

Despite the Depression, my city is alive. I never tire of the people and the energy. I work long hours at City Hall, but then my friends and I walk all over the city and we always end up dancing the night away in either Little Italy or uptown at our favorite, enormous dance hall: The Savoy.

I live in Yorkville, on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. The East River, the Met, and Central Park only take about a ten-minute walk to enjoy. Fio is a father figure, he’s close friends with Aunt Evelyn and Mr. Kirkland who runs our household. So my day begins with Fio dropping by for breakfast. Then we either take the subway downtown, the elevated train, or sometimes his driver picks us up. It’s always smart to take a different way every day so the mayor’s enemies don’t get used to our routines.

At work, I have a lot of duties and some of them are roles that men usually fulfill, which can make life tricky for us women. I’ve learned how to handle most fanny-pats and whatnot with aplomb. And I have found it useful to make mention of my uncanny knife-throwing ability handed down from my father. My parents had many secrets that I am still just beginning to unravel.

I’m also excited to share with you the love interest my author gave me. Finn Brodie is a detective with the NYPD and was born in Ireland, raised in London. He and I share a passionate view of life and Finn appreciates my love of adventure. He and I have often been the center of attention when we bust cases wide open or thwart the gangsters nefarious schemes. Finn also has a tenuous past like mine, and boy, wait until you see how he has to face the ghosts of his past in The Pearl Dagger! We get to take a trip across the Atlantic in an adventure I’ll never forget. But I really do love that my author, Laurie, knows that New York has our heart. We get to make field trips (in The Gold Pawn we traveled to Detroit and Rochester, Michigan), but all our intrigues are always in New York.

I think my life is a perfect example of the tension of our time. I worry that in the future our era will be only remembered for its soup lines and shanty towns. But I have to say, in spite of all that hardship, our time is full of liveliness, art, humor, and of course, cocktails. (My favorite is called a Bad Romance. My author shares our cocktail recipes in her newsletter, just so you know. They’re the bees knees!) The Art Deco is breath-taking and inspiring. The architecture of my favorite buildings that just went up within the past five years is absolutely stunning. The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall make my heart thump a little faster every time I walk by. Women are becoming prominent in the work force. Even Life magazine’s very first issue in November 1936 had the cover photo by a female photojournalist! I had a hard time in my early years, with my parents’ death when I was only ten. But just like my era, the very tension of my tragic beginning mixed with the fact that I adore my aunt who took me in and my job that makes me feel like I’m making a difference, it is a perfect example of beauty out of ashes. That’s how I hope people remember my era.

If you want a taste of it all, come join me in The Silver Gun, The Gold Pawn (which was an Agatha Nominee for Best Historical!) or The Pearl Dagger which released on August 27th. Can’t wait to chat with you again! ~Lane

You can read more about Lane in The Pearl Dagger, the third book in the “Art Deco” historical mystery series, released August 27, 2019.

As the Great Depression loosens its grip on New York City, Mayor La Guardia and his team meet their greatest foe in the fight against organized crime . . .

Lane Sanders and her fiery boss, Mayor Fiorello “Fio” La Guardia have managed to contain the explosive underground conspiracies of New York’s most sinister schemers. But after a seemingly harmless pinball racket claims the life of a trusted ally, a new ringleader signals the rebirth of an all-too-familiar crime network at home and across the pond . . .

Spurred on by the possibility of a violent syndicate spreading like wildfire through Europe, Lane sets sail for London—the city where her parents began the undercover work that led to their tragic undoing. And this time, she won’t chase down childhood nightmares without Finn Brodie, who vows to dispel his own difficult secrets abroad . . .

While Finn confronts a devious sibling’s plot that echoes Orson Welles’s Voodoo Macbeth, Lane discovers that a dazzling pearl dagger may wield the ultimate clue to guide their hunt for justice on two sides of the ocean. With terrors from the past and present converging, Lane can’t save herself unless she starts believing that, like her weapon of choice, she also has the power to be both beautiful and dangerous.

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Meet the author
L.A. Chandlar is the National Best-selling author of the Art Deco Mystery Series with Kensington Publishing. Her debut novel, The Silver Gun released in 2017, followed by the sequel, Agatha Award nominated The Gold Pawn. Book 3, The Pearl Dagger recently released in August 2019. Laurie speaks for a variety of audiences including a women’s group with the United Nations, and she is on the Sisters in Crime National Speakers Bureau. Laurie has also worked in PR for General Motors, writes and fund-raises for a global nonprofit, is the mother of two boys, and has toured the nation managing a rock band.

To learn more about Laurie, visit her website at lachandlar.com.

All comments are welcomed.