Mysterious Notes: Mysteries for the Music Lover

Dark End of the Street, by Ace Atkins

Former-professional-football-player-turned-music-historian/professor Nick Travers is researching early blues performers when he is asked by a friend to track down her brother, a singer who took to the streets when his wife was murdered. Atkins takes us on a tour of the New South and introduces us to the Dixie Mafia.

Dangerous Notes, by Gillian Bradshaw

When Valeria Thornham was an infant she received a treatment which caused the damaged cells of her brain to regenerate. When we meet her she is a gifted music student on the run from the law for not submitting to tests related to that treatment.

This gives the non-musician a good idea of what happens to the musician when s/he is performing.

Blue Moon, by Peter Duchin and John Morgan Wilson

Set in San Francisco during the early '60's swing band leader Philip Damon is playing for a charity event when he sees a woman who appears to be his murdered wife’s double dancing with the heir to a vast fortune. The lights go out. When they come on again, the heir has an ice pick in his chest and our hero is the only link between two unsolved murders.

Baby, Would I Lie?, by Donald E. Westlake

This one is for the country music lover who can also laugh at the genre. Good ol’ Boy and country music star Ray Jones is on trial for rape and murder. The I.R.S. also wants a piece of him.

Sara Joslyn, reporter for Trend: The Magazine for the Way We Live This Instant is sent to cover the story and one-up the sleazy competition once and for all.

Murder in C Major, by Sara Hoskinson Frommer

Widow Joan Spencer has returned to her home town and reestablished her life. One of her small pleasures is playing viola in the local symphony until the oboist is murdered during rehearsal. The guy was a nasty man so the suspects are many. Then the flautist is murdered as well.

The Music Box Murders, by Larry Karp

Dr. Thomas Purdue collects music boxes and is thrilled when his "picker," Broadway Schwarz, calls to tell him that a particularly rare one has come on the market. He takes the box to his friend the restorer who feels that the box isn’t playing perfectly and asks him to leave the box there for a few days. Then the restorer is murdered and the box disappears.

Looking for Chet Baker, by Bill Moody

Jazz pianist Evan Horne, recovering from a hand injury, takes a gig in Amsterdam when an old "friend" asks for his help in determining how late trumpeter Chet Baker really died. Evan has been led into trouble by his "friend" before and refuses. Then the fellow disappears and Evan feels responsible.

The Devil in Music, by Kate Ross

Regency dandy Julian Kestrel has successfully tried his hand at sleuthing in England. Now that he is traveling the Continent he reads of the old murder, recently uncovered, of someone he used to know so he goes to Milan to investigate whether anyone wants him to or not. The reader is introduced to the world of Italian opera, including the life of a Castrato.

Ross only wrote four books before she died of cancer at far too young an age. This one is elegant.