In their second collaboration (after 2002's Blue Moon
), high-society bandleader Duchin and Edgar winner Wilson spin another smooth, celebrity-strewn tale of homicide. In August 1965, Philip Damon and his orchestra are heading to Los Angeles for a gig at the fabled Cocoanut Grove, but his singer is down with a cold, and his trumpet player is caught up in a family emergency. Damon's solution is to offer a job temporarily to Buddy Bixby, a trumpeter and vocalist who's had trouble in the past with drugs. Scandal continues to surround Bixby, but Damon feels he owes the guy a chance for good deeds in the past, a decision that will lead to trouble. Though the memory of his wife's murder four years earlier still lingers, Damon thinks it's time to begin putting the past behind him. Beautiful actress Monica Rivers seems to be just what he needs to put him on the road to recovery, but the suspicious death of Buddy Bixby casts a shadow on everything. Along with ex-cop-turned-sax-player Hercules Platt, Damon digs through the past to find out who wanted Bixby dead, and why. Though the identity of the villain will come as no great surprise, readers will nevertheless enjoy this nostalgic ride through 1960s Hollywood and look forward to seeing more of Damon and Platt. Agent, Alice Martell. (Dec. 2)
FYI:
Wilson is the author of
Blind Eye (Forecasts, Aug. 25) and other titles in his Benjamin Justice mystery series.
