BLUE MOON: A Philip Damon Mystery

High society bandleader Duchin and Edgar Award winner Wilson (the Benjamin Justice series) team up for a nostalgia-filled first mystery set in San Francisco in 1963. A bandleader, and son of a famous bandleader, Philip Damon plays swing and jazz standards at grand hotels and special events when he isn't hanging out with such friends as Bobby Short, Jackie Kennedy, Truman Capote and George Plimpton. The name-dropping, which starts on page two and remains a constant feature, will irritate some and amuse others. Still mourning the death of his wife, Diana, the victim of an unsolved murder two years earlier, Damon agrees at Jackie's suggestion to play a charity gig with his orchestra at the Fairmont Hotel, where he first met Diana. Just as Damon spots a Diana look-alike on the crowded dance floor in the arms of real estate tycoon Terence Hamilton Collier III, the lights go out; when they go back on, Collier is dead with an ice pick in his chest. San Francisco's lone black homicide inspector, Hercules Platt, grudgingly comes to accept Damon's help on the case, though Damon is himself a suspect. While the authors supply a reasonably credible plot, the atmosphere of '60s San Francisco they evoke, from Chinatown to Haight-Ashbury, will be the draw for most readers. The characters visit virtually every well-known restaurant at least once. Expect applause and an encore for bandleader sleuth Philip Damon. (Oct. 1)

Forecast:The elegant purple dust jacket, with figures in evening dress and piano above the Duchin name, will help attract those attracted to high society.