With a name like Rockefeller, a man's character must be impeachable, right? Untrue. To wit: Tonight at Vroman's, investigative journalist Frank C. Girardot discusses Name Dropper: Investigating the Clark Rockefeller Mystery. It's the story of how the intrepid writer pieced together the crazy quilt of lies told by one Clark Rockefeller, whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter and who was just convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of two people in the mid-'80s. Gerhartsreiter, a German national living in the United States on a student visa in the '70s, insinuated himself in the cloistered enclaves of otherwise savvy rich folk in Manhattan and bucolic San Marino, where the grisly murders took place. Gerhartsreiter appeared on Girardot's radar in 2008 after being busted for abducting his own daughter, and, given Girardot's keen nose for news, the pieces fell into place as surely as the names dropped by the con man as he made his way down paths both social and socioeconomic. Vroman's Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd.; Pasadena; Mon., May 6, 7 p.m.; free, book is $20. (626) 449-5320, vromansbookstore.com.

Mon., May 6, 7 p.m., 2013

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