The grey flannel sunlight enveloped me like a cheap suit as the scorched Colorado Blvd. sidewalk stretched out ahead. My dogs were howling and my forehead was hotter than a cheap pistol. Obviously, I’m no mystery novelist, nor a private detective by any means. At this moment I was merely another librarian in sensible shoes trudging along the unforgiving urban street. And in my case it was the first time in ages. But there’s no denying it, I felt more than a little like a quizzical gumshoe than a librarian as I first encountered a haunting question that I’ve asked myself repeatedly since then: just who is the real Eve Diamond?

It all started back in 2005, quite some time before I began working for the South Pasadena Public Library. I had driven 9 hours to the San Gabriel Valley from Nevada County, California. My visit was timed to coincide with the California Library Association Annual Conference scheduled for four days in Pasadena that year. At night I stayed with my parents in the home where I grew up in La Crescenta. By day I attended meetings, workshops, and exhibits in the Pasadena Convention Center. Afterwards I visited the excellent bookstores in the area.

My official title was the Nevada County Librarian. The Library’s headquarters is located in Nevada City, the county seat, a scant four miles from Grass Valley. The two cities combine to form the Gold Cities Book Town. Only two other locations in the United States have an official “Book Town” designation. The concept was pioneered in 1961 in Hay-On-Wye in Wales by an Englishman named John Booth who’d purchased an entire town and converted all the shops to bookstores.

Grass Valley and Nevada City were recognized by the San Francisco Chronicle for having more bookstores per capita than anywhere else.  At the time of a cover story in the Date Book section in the April 6, 2003 edition of the paper, the area could boast of 15 bookshops and 8 Internet booksellers.  The Sunday, November 6, 2005 Los Angeles Times proclaimed the area “a mother lode of independent bookstores.” Although numerous relatively small bookstores dot both historic downtown areas, often within walking distance of each other, no super-sized bookstores exist anywhere in the entire county. There’s nothing remotely akin to Barnes & Noble, Crown Books, or Vroman’s. And almost all of the Nevada County bookstores exclusively handle used books. The region is also home to the annual Gold Rush Book Fair that draws high-end antiquarian dealers and collectors from around the West. By the way, South Pasadena’s Book‘em Mysteries shop is rightfully highly recommended for its specialty in the January/February issue of Westways in an article called “Day-Tripping: South Pasadena.” Another local fixture, the Bookhouse on Fair Oaks Avenue should definitely not be missed by visiting booklovers either.

Ambling across the Pasadena inner city landscape in 2005, I was drawn inside a gigantic bookstore. It had first opened about 5 years earlier, around the time of the previous CLA Conference in Pasadena. Back then I’d driven home with a carload of new bestsellers because a Colorado Avenue franchise retailer that mostly sold music CDs had decided to cease carrying hardbacks altogether due to the arrival of this particular major bookseller right across the street. They were willing to accept pennies on the dollar –as long as I bought their entire inventory of books. Returning with an enormous haul of literary riches to rural California, I almost felt as though I should be driving an armored car.
Unfortunately, no closeout sale banners were in evidence in 2005 when I entered the bookseller’s location. But an unusual pairing of two common words caught my eye as I sauntered down the bookstore aisle. It was a familiar combination that, strangely enough, I’d only seen in Nevada County.  The conjoined words “Eve Diamond” were emblazoned on a new book display for Denise Hamilton’s bestselling mystery series. I only knew Eve Diamond as the name of an Administrative Analyst for the Nevada County Board of Supervisors. She was a frequent user of the Library in Nevada City and often walked by outside with her co-workers during breaks. She was also the first to suggest the addition of park benches outside the Library in Nevada City.  After returning from Pasadena to Nevada County I sent her an email asking if she knew that she and the main character of a popular mystery book series shared the same name.

Surprisingly, Eve replied that it was no mere coincidence:  both she and the fictional literary sleuth shared the name by design.  She’d met the future author around 1985 when Denise was working for the Los Angeles Times and they had both recently moved to Ventura.  Eve was working for her father's consulting firm as publications director. Eve now lives in Nevada City with her husband, a dog, two, cats and two birds. Her official job duties include serving as a research aide, writing assistant, and liaison to the Nevada County Board of Supervisors, their constituents, and County department heads.

She and Denise were both single and in their early 30's and she admired Denise's scintillating writing style. One day she joked that Denise should write her memoirs.  Eve believes, however, that the character's relationship to her really begins and ends with the name only. She’s also convinced that the character is primarily based on the author because Denise was a reporter and always interested in crime novels. 
 
As Eve recalls, Denise called her around 1997 to ask if she could use her name for her first novel The Jasmine Trade.  Eve was in Ojai at the time and working as a meeting planner. She considered it an honor to have a literary protagonist for a namesake, and never gave a thought to a money deal or anything like that, nor would she ever consider it, as “there are other Eve Diamonds in the world.”  For that matter, there are now four more successful Eve Diamond novels: Sugar Skull, Last Lullaby, Savage Garden, and Prisoner of Memory.

According to an email recently received from Denise Hamilton, back in the 80s she’d go out for a drink once in a while with Eve Diamond. She’d tell her that she had a great Raymond Chandleresque name and that one day she’d write a book and dub her character after her: Eve for the mother of us all, the first woman, and Diamond for the beautiful glittery stone, multi-faceted and precious –yet still the hardest material known to man. Denise concluded by adding, “That’s the story.”

But is that really all there is to it?  Is the fictional Eve Diamond merely an amalgam of the real-life Nevada County Eve Diamond’s name melded with the author’s sensibilities and fanciful imagination --or does it run deeper than that? Or are the two in cahoots and just trying to throw me off the trail that now stretches from Nevada City to South Pasadena?  I could probably pound every step of the pavement between the two places and never know the truth.

Or maybe there’s an easier path to the answer. Perhaps the mystery can be solved by merely attending Denise Hamilton’s ‘Author Night’ speaking appearance in the Community Room of the South Pasadena Public Library on Tuesday, January 23 at 7:00 p.m.  At the very least, along with the other audience members, I can enjoy the rest of Denise’s free presentation, as well as the hospitality of the Friends of the South Pasadena Library, who are holding their brief annual meeting at the beginning of the event. No matter what, it will be interesting and entertaining.