Music and Crime

Deeply disturbing and impossible to resist, this novel marks a significant debut. Creech seems to know the people he writes about, black and white, living on the fringes of the music world in California and in New York. At age 32, Ray the Face plays the saxophone masterfully, yet his career is going nowhere. Obsessed by his only god, music, Ray turns to theft with his partner on the bass, Lonnie, both avoiding jobs that would interfere with their few chances to perform. The ongoing terrors in the narrative peak when Ray falls for sexy Reggie, a singer who tries to persuade him to sign with a cutthroat agent, an encounter that drives Ray and Lennie into a situation foreshadowed--though not predictable--from the beginning. Running through the story like the minor chords in the blues is the sense of heartbreak suffered by artists who are cursed, rather than blessed, by the gift that dominates their lives. (Mar.)