About the Book

Notorious

Just as she’s about to bring a famous rap star to trial for murder, Melanie Vargas becomes the sole witness when a car bomb kills the rapper's lawyer. Her career and safety are on the line, but so is her heart: Melanie's relationship with the charismatic defense lawyer was more than strictly professional. Determined to hunt down his killer, she finds herself in a dangerous world of subterfuge and double-crosses. The lawyer wasn't what he seemed. She discovers a lot of people wanted him dead . . . and he was married.

Now, as sole witness to the murder, she is in danger of losing her own life. As Melanie zeroes in on the answer, she finds she can't trust anybody—not even those closest to her. This is the fourth legal thriller from former federal prosecutor Michelle Martinez to feature Melanie Vargas. BookLoons.com notes, "Melanie Vargas is, as always, an engaging lead and her latest Notorious adventure has all the courtroom drama, chills, thrills, romance, and twisty surprises that fans have come to expect from an absorbing series."

About the Author

Like Melanie Vargas, the main character in her novels, Michele Martinez had the privilege of serving as a federal prosecutor in New York City. For eight years she was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, which covers some of the most drug- and gang-infested areas of Brooklyn and Queens. She had jurisdiction over the biggest narcotics organizations in the world, and prosecuted these cases that included serious violence, weapons charges, even murder.

Doing the cases in New York, where everything seems to move faster and happen bigger, she got a whole lifetime's experience of serious crime in eight years. Michele believes she is living the American dream, having grown up in a, though racially tense urban section of New Haven, the daughter of a Puerto Rican-born father and mother who was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. She moved on from that neighborhood to Harvard University and to Stanford Law School. She clerked for a federal judge, and landed a position at a fancy, high-paying Manhattan
law firm.

In 1993, Michele became an Assistant U.S. Attorney, the Melanie Vargas thrillers reflect Michele's unique background —from humble beginnings to the halls of the Ivy League, from the mean streets of Brooklyn to the glamorous environs of Manhattan's wealthiest neighborhoods, from working late to changing diapers. With plenty of sex and violence thrown in for good measure. Bookreporter.com notes that Martinez has "quickly acquired a reputation in the thriller field for consistent excellence."

About the Guest Interviewer

Frenchie Robles covers Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico for the Miami Herald foreign desk. She started at the Miami Herald in 1993 covering higher education and later moved on to writing about crime and courts. She was the paper's bureau chief in both Nicaragua and Bogota, where she covered the Colombian civil conflict and government collapses in three countries.

She was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams and was a finalist for a third. Her coverage of Colombia's civil war won her the 2003 InterAmerican Press Association News Coverage award. A native New Yorker, the New York University graduate was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University in 2005. She is a former board member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and right now is the programming chair for the group's upcoming convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She lives in Coral Gables, Florida.