Meet author Nick Stone

Books and Books Coral Gables July 10th, 2007. 8:00 p.m.Max Mingus wanted to turn down the case – fifteen million bucks on the table or not. The boy was dead, Max was sure of it. Three years had passed since Haitian billionaire Allain Carver’s five-year-old son was abducted. Why bother now? The huge bounty and the resources of the most powerful white family in Haiti hadn’t turned up a lead. Sure, Max had been the best detective in Miami once. But that was eight years back. Before he served time for killing a pair of junkie child-murderers. Before his wife, Sandra, died. Plus, he’d heard what had happened to the other PI’s sent to Haiti before him – all dead, or their lives permanently screwed up, without ever getting close to finding Charlie Carver. When the trail to Charlie Carver points to a local myth – “Mr. Clarinet,” a spirit figure who for decades is said to have been tempting children away from their families – could the truth be even more shocking than the legend? Max’s job suddenly isn’t all about finding the boy, his killers, or the money – it’s about just staying alive. London-based author Nick Stone, the son of eminent historian Norman Stone and a Haitian mother who is a descendant of Haiti’s oldest family, the Aubrys, reads from his gripping thriller, Mr. Clarinet this evening. For more information, please call: 305.442.4408