Melody and Murder: Two Novels
Aug 2017 · Open Road Media
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850
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About this ebook
From Hollywood’s Golden Age to a rock ’n’ roll tragedy, this pair of detective novels from two award-winning maestros of mystery hits all the right notes.
From Edgar Award–winning author Stuart M. Kaminsky, Dancing in the Dark shines a light on the 1940s Los Angeles dancing scene. Paired with Ellery Queen Award–winning author Ed Gorman’s “gripping, amusing, thoughtful and hugely entertaining” The Day the Music Died, these two kooky and delightful mysteries are now available in one volume (Dean Koontz).
Dancing in the Dark by Stuart M. Kaminsky: It’s going to take some fancy footwork for hard-boiled Hollywood private detective Toby Peters to get Fred Astaire off the hook. After giving a gangster’s moll dancing lessons, he tires of her making passes at him and hires the famously discreet private investigator to break the news gently. When a killer cuts in and the moll ends up dead, Peters must take the lead in solving the case . . . or face the music himself.
The Day the Music Died by Ed Gorman: After his rock ’n’ roll hero, Buddy Holly, dies in a plane crash, young Iowa lawyer and part-time PI Sam McCain just wants to play his records and grieve—until the nephew of an eccentric judge kills himself after his trophy wife is murdered. The police see it as a clear-cut murder-suicide, but Sam wants to know more. But diving into this mystery will get dangerous faster than he can say “bye, bye, Miss American Pie.”
From Edgar Award–winning author Stuart M. Kaminsky, Dancing in the Dark shines a light on the 1940s Los Angeles dancing scene. Paired with Ellery Queen Award–winning author Ed Gorman’s “gripping, amusing, thoughtful and hugely entertaining” The Day the Music Died, these two kooky and delightful mysteries are now available in one volume (Dean Koontz).
Dancing in the Dark by Stuart M. Kaminsky: It’s going to take some fancy footwork for hard-boiled Hollywood private detective Toby Peters to get Fred Astaire off the hook. After giving a gangster’s moll dancing lessons, he tires of her making passes at him and hires the famously discreet private investigator to break the news gently. When a killer cuts in and the moll ends up dead, Peters must take the lead in solving the case . . . or face the music himself.
The Day the Music Died by Ed Gorman: After his rock ’n’ roll hero, Buddy Holly, dies in a plane crash, young Iowa lawyer and part-time PI Sam McCain just wants to play his records and grieve—until the nephew of an eccentric judge kills himself after his trophy wife is murdered. The police see it as a clear-cut murder-suicide, but Sam wants to know more. But diving into this mystery will get dangerous faster than he can say “bye, bye, Miss American Pie.”
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About the author
Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934–2009) was one of the most prolific crime fiction authors of the last four decades. Born in Chicago, he spent his youth immersed in pulp fiction and classic cinema—two forms of popular entertainment which he would make his life’s work. After college and a stint in the army, Kaminsky wrote film criticism and biographies of the great actors and directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In 1977, when a planned biography of Charlton Heston fell through, Kaminsky wrote Bullet for a Star, his first Toby Peters novel, beginning a fiction career that would last the rest of his life.
Kaminsky penned twenty-four novels starring the detective, whom he described as “the anti-Philip Marlowe.” In 1981’s Death of a Dissident, Kaminsky debuted Moscow police detective Porfiry Rostnikov, whose stories were praised for their accurate depiction of Soviet life. His other two series starred Abe Lieberman, a hardened Chicago cop, and Lew Fonseca, a process server. In all, Kaminsky wrote more than sixty novels. He died in St. Louis in 2009.
Ed Gorman (b. 1941) is an American author best known for writing mystery novels. After two decades in advertising, he began publishing novels in the mid-1980s. While using the pen name Daniel Ransom to write popular horror stories like Daddy’s Little Girl (1985) and Toys in the Attic (1986), he published more ambitious work under his own name, starting with Rough Cut (1986). A story about murder and intrigue inside the advertising world, it was based on his own experience, and introduced Midwestern private detective Jack Dwyer, a compassionate sleuth with a taste for acting.
Gorman’s other series characters include Robert Payne, a psychological profiler, and Leo Guild, a bounty hunter of the Old West, but his best-known character is probably Sam McCain, a gentle young sleuth of the 1950s, who first appeared in The Day the Music Died (1998). Besides writing novels, Gorman is a cofounder of Mystery Scene magazine.
Kaminsky penned twenty-four novels starring the detective, whom he described as “the anti-Philip Marlowe.” In 1981’s Death of a Dissident, Kaminsky debuted Moscow police detective Porfiry Rostnikov, whose stories were praised for their accurate depiction of Soviet life. His other two series starred Abe Lieberman, a hardened Chicago cop, and Lew Fonseca, a process server. In all, Kaminsky wrote more than sixty novels. He died in St. Louis in 2009.
Ed Gorman (b. 1941) is an American author best known for writing mystery novels. After two decades in advertising, he began publishing novels in the mid-1980s. While using the pen name Daniel Ransom to write popular horror stories like Daddy’s Little Girl (1985) and Toys in the Attic (1986), he published more ambitious work under his own name, starting with Rough Cut (1986). A story about murder and intrigue inside the advertising world, it was based on his own experience, and introduced Midwestern private detective Jack Dwyer, a compassionate sleuth with a taste for acting.
Gorman’s other series characters include Robert Payne, a psychological profiler, and Leo Guild, a bounty hunter of the Old West, but his best-known character is probably Sam McCain, a gentle young sleuth of the 1950s, who first appeared in The Day the Music Died (1998). Besides writing novels, Gorman is a cofounder of Mystery Scene magazine.
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