Left Bank Books presents debut author Lori Rader-Day, who will sign and discuss her mystery novel, The Black Hour (Seventh Street Books, July 2014), on Monday, August 11, 7pm, at Left Bank Books (399 N. Euclid).

For Chicago sociology professor Amelia Emmet, violence was a research topic – until a student she’d never met shot her. Now he’s dead and she’s back on campus. All she wants is for life to get back to normal, but normal is looking hard to come by. Enter Nathaniel Barber, a graduate student obsessed with Chicago’s violent history. He’s hoping she’ll approve his dissertation topic: the student attack on Amelia Emmet. Together and at cross-purposes, Amelia and Nathaniel stumble toward a truth that will explain the attack and take them both through the darkest hours of their lives.

The Black Hour received starred reviews from Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. Publishers Weekly calls it, “An exceptional debut…An irresistible combination of menace, betrayal, and self-discovery.” Booklist calls it an “unputdownable read,” and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan says, “A terrific whydunnit! This dark page-turner – well-written, with bite and style and edge and simmering conflict – will keep you riveted from page one.”

Lori Rader-Day has published fiction in Good Housekeeping, The Madison Review, TimeOut Chicago, Southern Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and other journals and magazines. She lives in Chicago, where she is vice president of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter, and active in Sisters in Crime Chicagoland Chapter and International Thriller Writers. She is an instructor for Story Studio Chicago/North Shore, where she teaches mystery writing.