Beth Saulnier, associate editor of Cornell Magazine, will join other Cornell authors for a book signing this Saturday, Nov. 6, from 10 a.m. to noon, at the Cornell Campus Store (see the Chronicle calendar, Page 11, for details).
Saulnier is celebrating her first book, a murder mystery called Reliable Sources, which draws heavily on local landmarks, including a certain Benson University that bears a striking resemblance to the Big Red.
Saulnier was a reporter for The Ithaca Journal three years prior to working at Cornell Magazine. A movie buff, she writes a weekly column called "Saulnier on Cinema" for the Journal and co-hosts a popular movie review show on local cable access.
Saulnier describes Reliable Sources as: "a murder mystery about a 25-year-old reporter named Alex Bernier, who loses the man she loves (a police reporter whose body is found at the bottom of a gorge) and then nearly gets herself killed trying to prove his death wasn't a suicide. Those crazy few weeks take her around the country and through the emotional wringer, as she struggles to separate the truth from the lies -- and to hold on to the smart-alecky sense of humor that helps her survive."
Saulnier said that any resemblance between the book's sassy Vassar-bred protagonist and herself is pure pulp fiction.
"We definitely have a lot in common, from our obsession with dogs and moody guys to our insistence on living in a quirky college town in upstate New York," said Saulnier. "But Alex is her own person; I think of her as a friend of mine."
Saulnier also will give a reading and sign books on Saturday at 2 p.m. during an "Off Campus at the Bookery" event at the Women's Community Building in Ithaca.
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