Author Shares Mystery At Book Passage

And the solution is... If you want to learn how to write a successful mystery or thriller, you might as well go to one of the best. Robert Dugoni will teach at the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference on July 19-22.

But Tuesday, he'll be at Book Passage in Corte Madera with his latest legal thriller at 7p.m. In Conviction, lawyer David Sloane steps outside the law to do whatever it takes to save his teenage son, who is trapped in a juvenile detention center from hell.

According to his official bio, Dugoni jokes that, as the middle child in a family of 10 siblings, he didn't get much of a chance to talk, so he wrote. By the seventh grade he wanted to be a writer.

Dugoni's path to becoming a successful writer took him away from a reporter's desk at the L.A. Times to law school and a career in the San Francisco law firm, Gordon and Rees. He eventually gave up his full-time legal career and moved from the Bay Area to Seattle.

According to his bio, "Dugoni worked in an 8 x 8 foot windowless office in Seattle's Pioneer Square. He completed three novels, two of which won the 1999 and 2000 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contests. However it was Dugoni's non-fiction exposé, The Cyanide Canary, that gave him his start in the business. Published in 2004 by Simon and Schuster, the critically acclaimed true story chronicled the investigation, prosecution, and aftermath surrounding an environmental crime in Soda Springs, Idaho."

Here are a few other things to do this week:

• Do you think libraries are just cold, quiet places full of dusty old books? Think again. Let your children — including your inner child — laugh out loud at the slapstick antics of Daffy Dave when he visits the Corte Madera Library on Wednesday at 11 a.m.

• Are you caring for someone with a serious illness or disability? Join the members of the Attitudinal Healing peer support group on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Greenbrae. Take some time to share your feelings, thoughts, and fears, and give and receive support.

• The Larkspur Chamber of Comerce Board meets Tuesday, from 9 to 10 a.m. at 50 Bon Air Center. The Chamber is preparing for the Fourth of July festivities and the July Wine Stroll.

• Drop by the Corte Madera farmers market every Wednesday, from noon to 5 p.m., at the Town Center.