|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
It's not uncommon for crime fiction writers to weave music into their stories. Some writers even have been known to play in a band or two. In CRIME PLUS MUSIC, the two passions are combined in a strong collection.
Here, Jim Fusilli, the rock and pop music critic for the Wall Street Journal and the author of seven novels, has brought together twenty authors with this music-themed anthology. The authors range from the well-known (Craig Johnson, Val McDermid and Peter Robinson, among others) to lesser-known authors, such as Galadrielle Allman and Willy Vlautin. These are crime stories that were inspired by rock and pop, although at least one story contains bagpipe music.
While most of the characters are fictional, the anthology's opening story—"The Last Temptation of Frankie Lymon" by Peter Blauner—takes the real-life singer ("Why Do Fools Fall in Love") and reimagines Lymon's last days, perhaps hours. The real Frankie Lymon, a teenage singing idol, died at the age of twenty-five of a heroin overdose. The fictional Lymon, already a washed-up has-been, meets a mysterious woman at a bar—and the story takes off in a noir way, as do the rest in this fine collection.
Many of the stories focus on bands and musicians. Naomi Rand's "The Misfits" is a particularly strong story about a suburban teenager who gets into an all-girls band, but success comes at a price. Willy Vlautin, himself the lead singer and songwriter of a Portland, Oregon band, writes about a band on tour in "A Bus Ticket to Phoenix." When amps, watches, and other items disappear, one band member sets out to investigate.
Other stories have music just as the background—literally, as in "Unbalanced," by bestselling author Craig Johnson. His protagonist from the Longmire series, Sheriff Walt Longmire, gives a young woman a lift as he heads to the airport to pick up his daughter. The troubled young woman unspools her story as a CD of Merle Haggard plays in the background.
A favorite of mine was "The Long Lament," by Brendan DuBois, in which a son returns home to his dying father, even though his father and brother are hostile. Bagpipes play as the leader of the Campbell clan from the Highlands lies dying. The bagpipes will mean a reversal of fortune for one son.
Some stories are stronger than others but, for the most part, this is a collection that rocks.
§ Lourdes Venard is an independent editor who divides her time between New York and Maui.
Reviewed by Lourdes Venard, October 2016
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
