cover image The Last Full Measure: A Katy Green Mystery

The Last Full Measure: A Katy Green Mystery

Hal Glatzer, . . Perseverance, $13.95 (289pp) ISBN 978-1-880284-84-1

Those who love the music of the big band era will enjoy Glatzer's lightweight third Katy Green historical (after 2004's A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen ), which portrays the life of working musicians (or, more often, looking-for-work musicians) with authority and charm. The basic setup has strong dramatic potential: Katy Green, who plays fiddle and alto sax in an all-girl band working on a cruise ship bound for Honolulu in late 1941, is offended by the anti-Japanese racism she encounters in other passengers, just days before the Pearl Harbor attack. But atmosphere and sensitivity by themselves can't carry a weak plot. Make that two weak plots. For this story has two separate plot threads, which never get tied together. One fizzles to a dead end, and seems designed primarily to exhibit the author's knowledge of Hawaiian history. The other, involving several murders aboard ship, rests precariously on the most oblique of motives. Readers who can ignore all this in favor of nostalgia will be rewarded with a pleasant trip. (Apr.)