Murder on Tour: A Rock'n'roll Mystery

Ageless DJ Clark offers a lot of rock 'n' roll lore, too much of it name- and song-dropping, while his co-authorPaul Engleman writing under a pseudonym ( Catch a Fallen Angel )gives us a so-so plot and thin characterizations. Narrator Del Barnes, a one-hit rock burnout pulling himself together as a reporter for a new (1979) music magazine, describes the emergence of Roots, a hot new group touring to promote its first album. The band's stars are young guitarist Kid Lee and his uncle Jack ``The Knife'' Mitchell, who uses switchblades as drumsticks. Trouble besets them, emanating from the producer's sons, one a nasty singer, the other a nasty manager. At the first concert, in Minneapolis, the manager dies of a drug overdose, though his family insists he never did drugs. At the second concert, in Madison, Wis., the singer is crushed to death by a huge speaker. When a cop tells Del that a band member has implicated him, the journalist turns sleuth. Eventually he comes up with a 20-year-old vow of revenge generated by an unpleasant music-biz scam. There's more violence and death before the predictable climax and an ending dazzling in its sentimentality. Author tour. (Jan.)