Blue Lightning [Paperback]

Author of numerous novels and short stories featuring detective Charlie Resnick, Harvey has gathered in this quirky anthology tales by 18 other writers mostly known for their crime fiction. Thematically joined by their characters' musical passions, the stories range from a fictional meeting in Memphis between Johnny Cash and John Lennon, written by Cash's daughter Roseanne, to Walter Mosley's title story starring Socrates Fortlow, the philosophical ex-convict introduced in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. Harvey himself contributes "Cool Blues," in which Resnick is on the trail of a jazz-obsessed thief. The range of musical genres covered is as diverse as the authors: Japanese avant-garde (Stella Duffy's "No"), pop/rock (Kirsty Gunn's "Aja"; Ian Rankin's "Glimmer"), country (Julie Smith's "Too Mean to Die") and blues and jazz (many stories). While there are elements of mystery and suspense in many of the pieces, literate-minded music lovers are the book's intended readers, and they will likely devour the collection whole and identify with Tony Vincenzo, the patrol officer protagonist in Jeffery Deaver's "Nocturne," whose music library includes Tony Bennett, Django Reinhardt, Fats Waller, Diana Ross and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Closing with brief biographies of the contributors, including comments on their listening habits, this anthology speaks strongly for the power of songs and styles to evoke events and feelings of the past and to transport listeners to important moments of their lives.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

British mystery writer Harvey presents a mixed bag of short stories with dual themes: mystery and pop music. The centerpiece is a new Socrates Fortlow story from Walter Mosley. Other "known" writersALiza Cody, Julie Smith, and Harvey himselfAalso weigh in. One of the best selections is a procedural from Jeffery Deaver about a good cop and a stolen Stradivarius, one of the not-best is Ian Rankin's odd second-person effort about a playwright and the Rolling Stones. Some of the gems are from the lesser-knowns: Roseanne Cash's sweet fiction about a John Lennon trip to Memphis, where he hangs out with her father; Michael Z. Lewin's tale of an ego-fueled artiste and a female backup group for a record session; John L. Williams's sardonic story of a dead bluesman and an inept White Panther party in Cardiff in the 1970s. Except for shared topics, the stories are independent. Essential it's not (thump thump)/ When all's said and done (thump thump)/ But for mystery/ pop hounds (thump thump)/ It's a whole lot of fun.ARobert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Eighteen stories in the mystery genre, edited by British poet, cultural historian, and mystery writer Harvey (Easy Meat, 1996, etc.), explore the meaning of music in offbeat lives. Gritty nightclub dressing rooms, late-night disc jockeys talking to themselves, pop lyrics ironically contrasted with grim realities, romantic sax men dreaming through their hornsit's all here, from writers as established as Walter Mosley (whose ``Blue Lightning'' offers a brief glimpse of the dignified ex-con musical tootler Socrates Fortlow finding redemption) and as unheralded as singer/novelist Rosanne Cash, who imagines a sentimental summit between her father, Johnny Cash, and an ineptly disguised Beatle in ``John Lennon in the American South.'' Most contributors, like Harvey himselfwhose ``Cool Blues'' sets his hero Inspector Charlie Resnick on the trail of a serial robber who takes the names of Duke Ellington's band members as his aliaseslack superstar dazzle but are reasonably well known. Jeffery Deaver's ``Nocturne'' is a snappy Manhattan police procedural about a stolen Stradivarius and an unconventional, musically-inspired cop's bighearted sense of justice; Gary Phillips more standard whodunit shows what fools rap musicians can be as Ivan Monk, his series detective, unmasks a ``Stone Cold Killah.'' Most stories dwell on the peaks and pits of musical types wholl never hog the spotlight: Ira Rankin, in his pretentious second-person confessional ``Glimmer,'' tells of a dissolute playwright who happened to be in the right place at the right time when the Rolling Stones needed somebody to sing ``ooh, ooh.'' Music also sounds rites of passage, bringing on a mental breakdown in Kirsty Gunn's ``Aja'' and a heart attack for an aging blues singer in Charlotte Carter's ``A Flower is a Lovesome Thing.'' Sour notes: in an appendix the writers plug their works, prattle on about how much they love music, and list the tunes they played while they were writing the stories. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.