Swing
A Mystery
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- 6,99 €
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- 6,99 €
Descripción editorial
Two-time Edgar Award winner Rupert Holmes–author of the critically acclaimed Where the Truth Lies and creator of the Tony Award—winning musical whodunit The Mystery of Edwin Drood–now fuses gripping suspense and evocative music in an innovative novel of intrigue set in 1940, during the very heart of the Big Band era.
Jazz saxophonist and arranger Ray Sherwood, touring with the Jack Donovan Orchestra, is haunted by personal tragedy. But when a beautiful and talented Berkeley student named Gail Prentice seeks his help in orchestrating a highly original composition called Swing Around the Sun, which is slated to premiere at the Golden Gate Exposition on the newly created Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, Ray finds himself powerfully drawn to the beguiling coed. Within moments of first setting eyes on her, Ray also witnesses a horrifying sight: a young woman plunging to her death from the island’s emblematic Tower of the Sun.
As the captivated Ray learns more about Gail and her unusual family, he finds himself trapped in a tightening coil of spiraling secrets– some personally devastating, all dangerous and deadly– in which from moment to moment nothing is certain, including Gail’s intentions toward him and her connection to the dead woman who made such a grisly impact upon the stunning island. As events speed toward a shocking climax, Ray must use all his physical daring and improvisational skills to unlock an ominous puzzle whose sinister implications stretch far beyond anything he could imagine.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Take one multiple-award winning playwright/musician/screenwriter/producer/novelist, add a publisher willing to back a multimedia novel (this one boasts a CD of original music and a handful of illustrations) and the result is a clever, original mystery that's pure fun to read, listen to, look at and puzzle out. Holmes's Where the Truth Lies (2003) proved him to be an excellent period writer, a skill he demonstrates again with this story of murder at the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition, the West Coast answer to the New York World's Fair. Jazz musician Ray Sherwood is in San Francisco with his band when he meets a young composer, Gail Prentice, who needs him to orchestrate her award-winning musical composition, Swing, which will play at one of the fair's Treasure Island pavilions. Ray quickly falls for the fetching Grace and is soon deep into orchestrating her avant-garde composition. But after a woman plunges from the sky at the Court of the Moon plaza and lands at Ray's feet, he finds himself involved in a mystery that not only will produce more bodies but also threaten the stability of several governments. Music and mystery go hand in hand; the excellent swing music on the included CD (written and orchestrated by Holmes and referenced in the novel) contains clues to the solution. A tour de force of style and erudition, Holmes's second novel will delight mystery readers of any sort. , and Atom Egoyan has adapted his first novel for the screen. With a good push from Random House, this should make a big splash.
