Volker, Christine Evelyn: - Intrigued by foreign cultures at an early age, Christine mastered Spanish, German, and Italian. After earning an MLS and MBA, she was drawn to international banking and quickly rose to senior vice president of a global bank. Her career brought her to Milan in the 1990s, where she headed Italian credit and marketing, and took many fabulous trips to Venice. She knows how to analyze an Italian financial statement, and how to launder money. Venetian Blood marks a return to her roots in the humanities and was inspired by the Italians she met, including a count. She resides with her husband in Northern California. An intrepid world traveler, she has written a second international mystery, currently unpublished: an excerpt of Jaguar Moon, set in the rainforest of Peru, was a finalist in the San Francisco Writers Conference Contest.