Bag of Knives

Recent Praise for Bag Of Knives - A Novel




A novel in which readers who are also musicians will find much to love , February 11, 2009



By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) -



This review is from: Bag of Knives (Paperback)
Rock and Roll is the work of the devil some preachers say, but how far are some willing to go past just talking? "Bag of Knives" follows two people who live for the music, Skits and Eddie. Shut out of their dream careers by some musicians union they have never heard of before, they begin to lay the blame on a televangelist by the name of Billy Paladin. With the love of their lives on the line, the two begin to see what they can do against a holy man who is more than hot air. "Bag of Knives" is a novel in which readers who are also musicians will find much to love.


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Bag Of Knives is a mystery about two young men, Skits and Eddie, who grew up together in Chicago, IL. They met at Ginos Guitar Shop as boys, became friends and formed a band called Bag Of Knives. But due to some bad circumstances as they grew in to adulthood, Bag Of Knives was their only source of income. Gino Vincent, the owner of the shop, had taken the boys under his wing and groomed them in to the professionals they became. They played the area extensively and gained a great deal of popularity until they became the top drawing act in the Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin music circuits, and were even opening concerts for touring national acts.

One night at a packed venue in Milwaukee, they were approached by two men in trench coats from the musicians union. When the band couldnt produce union cards, they were shut down and put out of business. The band split up and Skits and Eddie found themselves unemployed, evicted and homeless. They decide to call on Gino for help. He had helped them before, surely he would help again. Without money or transportation, they decided to walk to Ginos Guitar Shop, which was located on the opposite corner of the city from where they were. On the third day of their walk in the freezing Chicago winter, they stumbled across Irmas Soup Kitchen. Irma sensed they were not typical homeless people, so she took them in and nursed them back to health. While helping out in the soup kitchen, they began hearing rumors that other bands had suffered the same fate as they had and then they heard two women talking about a television evangelist named Billy Paladin, a man who was on a quest to abolish rock and roll. They blew it off as some crackpot scheme until they finally got to Ginos Guitar Shop only to learn that Gino was somehow involved with this man, Billy Paladin. Since Gino ran the biggest guitar shop in the Midwest and catered to rock and roll musicians, this connection made no sense. Skits took it upon himself to solve the mystery of this connection of Gino and Billy Paladin as well as the other band robberies. In the end, as it has throughout history, good triumphs over evil or does it?