The Lovers’ Tango

By Mark Rubinstein

The Lovers’ Tango won the 2016 Gold Benjamin Franklin Award for Popular Fiction. Read.

Everything in Bill Shaw’s life changed the moment he met the beautiful actress Nora Reyes. But as a writer, he feared their love story would have a tragic ending.

Fifteen years after that fateful encounter, Bill is in the DA’s crosshairs: his research for a novel has eerie parallels to the circumstances surrounding Nora’s death. In a harrowing progression of events, a murder trial ensues. What exactly did happen between Bill and Nora the day she died? And what constitutes truth? Fiction and fact coalesce, as the lines between fantasy and reality, guilt and innocence are blurred. The Lovers’ Tango, a story of deeply abiding love, culminates in a shattering conclusion addressing devotion, commitment, and the meanings of truth and justice.

Read an Excerpt | Book Club Reading Group Guide

Praise for The Lovers’ Tango

“In The Lovers’ Tango, Mark Rubinstein proves that Nicholas Sparks is not the only author who can masterfully blend suspense, tragedy, and romance into a timeless story of love, loss, and the beguiling mystery of memory. Here is a story within a story, all entwined around a pair of lovers locked in a tragic dance. Once it starts, you’ll be unable to tear yourself away as you’re carried relentlessly forward to the novel’s surprising and poignant ending.”
—James Rollins, New York Times bestseller of The Sixth Extinction

“Legal thriller, medical mystery, and hauntingly suspenseful tale of a couple trapped in their final dance, Mark Rubinstein’s The Lovers’ Tango is a masterful story. The novel is powerful and poignant and kept me riveted through the last daring reveal.”
—Linda Fairstein, New York Times bestselling author of the Alex Cooper series

“The Lovers’ Tango is much more than a riveting courtroom drama. It is a powerful love story that kept me reading long after I should have been in bed.”
—Phillip Margolin, New York Times bestselling author of Woman with a Gun

With The Lovers’ Tango, Mark Rubinstein establishes himself as an A-list author. This is a true work of art, precisely constructed, skillfully rendered. It’s one of those novels. A book you’ll remember for a long, long time.”
—Scott Pratt, bestselling author of the Joe Dillard series

“Mark Rubinstein’s The Lovers’ Tango is a sultry, elegant piece of romantic noir. It has a terrific legal backdrop that merges the tale into a steamy courtroom thriller focusing on human frailty and the limitations of what we see before us.”
—Jon Land, USA Today bestselling author of Strong Darkness

“Most of you haven’t heard of Mark Rubinstein but that might be about to change thanks to the sultry and seductive The Lovers’ Tango. With echoes of the film Body Heat, the book follows writer Bill Shaw’s ill-fated, ultimately tragic romance with actress Nora Reyes — more than tragic when years after the fact, Shaw finds himself a suspect in Reyes’ apparent murder.

“In the true tradition of noir, reality becomes subjective based on whose POV we’re getting it from. The result is an elegant puzzle that turns the book into the 51st shade of gray, only with a terrific legal backdrop that merges the tale into an equally steamy courtroom thriller.

“A kind of hybrid mix of Sandra Brown’s and Harlan Coben’s mind-twisting tales where we’re left feeling the victims of a magic trick. Rubinstein proves quite the magician here and his performance is not to be missed.”
—Providence Journal