Baron, Aileen

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Baron, Aileen
(Aileen G. Baron, Aileen Garsson Baron)

PERSONAL:

Female. Education: University of California, Riverside, Ph.D.

CAREER:

California State University, Fullerton, former faculty member for twenty years.

WRITINGS:

(As Aileen G. Baron) A Fly Has a Hundred Eyes (mystery novel), Academy Chicago Publishers (Chicago, IL), 2002.

The Torch of Tangier (mystery novel), Poisoned Pen Press (Scottsdale, AZ), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

An archaeologist who was a professor for two decades and conducted field work in the Middle East, Aileen Baron retired from teaching and drew on her career knowledge to begin writing historical mystery novels featuring archaeologist Lily Sampson. In her debut, A Fly Has a Hundred Eyes, Lily, an American graduate student, is working in Palestine in 1938. It is just before World War II and there is growing international tension as the Middle East is alive with danger from terrorists and other factions. Baron bases the murder mystery in her book on the true case of an archaeologist who was killed on his way to see the opening of the Rockefeller Museum. Baron makes the victim Lily's supervisor, a British archaeologist named Geoffrey Eastbourne. The student sets out to find the murderer in a novel that "adeptly resurrects the uncertainty and the intrigue that characterized pre-World War II Jerusalem," according to Margaret Flanagan in Booklist.

In the sequel, The Torch of Tangier, Baron moves ahead to 1942. The world is now at war, and Lily, who has completed her doctorate in archaeology, is excavating at the Caves of Hercules just outside Tangier. When France falls to the Nazis, Spain, under the fascist dictator Franco, takes over Tangier, and Lily finds herself unable to get out. The city is also a hotbed of spies for both the Allies and Axis, and the archaeologist becomes involved in helping the Allies with their plans for invading North Africa. Lily's supervisor at the dig, Dr. Drury, also works for the OSS, and he enlists his protégé in his mission. However, Drury is soon killed and Lily finds herself taking his place. The situation worsens when Lily learns that Drury's code book is missing, which might put the Allies' plans at serious risk. A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that the whodunit aspects of the novel are "simplistic," but considered the book's strength to be in "the issues [Baron] … raises about Western versus Islamic cultural values [which] couldn't be more timely." Stephanie Zvirin, writing in Booklist, warned that some knowledge of the history of wartime North Africa is needed to fully appreciate the story, but added that "those who like their thrillers steeped in exotic climes will find intriguing political and cultural conflict aplenty."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2003, Margaret Flanagan, review of A Fly Has a Hundred Eyes, p. 843; May 1, 2006, Stephanie Zvirin, review of The Torch of Tangier, p. 16.

California Bookwatch, August, 2006, review of The Torch of Tangier.

Library Journal, May 1, 2006, Jo Ann Vicarel, "Mystery," review of The Torch of Tangier, p. 67.

Publishers Weekly, March 13, 2006, review of The Torch of Tangier, p. 46.