Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of Black's Beach Shuffle by Corey Lynn Fayman. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Black's Beach Shuffle by Corey Lynn Fayman
A Rolly Waters Mystery
iUniverse (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-595-40267-4 (0595402674)
ISBN-13: 978-0-595-40267-0 (9780595402670)
Publication Date: November 2006
List Price: $13.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Rolly Waters is a recovering rock musician and part-time private eye. One night his band performs at a blowout party for EyeBitz.com, a fast-rising Internet startup that has the city of San Diego talking. When Rolly returns after hours to retrieve his guitar from the host’s mansion, he finds a dead body floating in the swimming pool. His discovery sets in motion a series of intrigues that drag him into the surreal world of dot.com culture, as well as the dark heart of his own uneven past.
Review: Corey Lynn Fayman introduces part-time rock-and-roll band player, part-time private investigator Rolly Waters in the first of an expected trilogy of mysteries, Black's Beach Shuffle.
In a case of "it's not what you know but who you know", low-tech Rolly Waters is hired by a high-tech San Diego company to locate a missing computer disk, the key to a revolutionary software product being developed by EyeBitz.com. Rolly's only prior connection to the company was from the night before when, after completing a gig at the home of an EyeBitz.com executive and returning for a forgotten guitar, Rolly finds a dead man floating in the pool built on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. That same man is later found at the base of the cliffs on Black's Beach. Rolly soon discovers that the murdered man and his investigation are intricately related and solving one will lead to the solution of the other.
There's a well written passage about a third of the way into the book that sums up Rolly's perception of his case. "Solving cases was like writing songs. Most of his cases were simple blues tunes. You started with the basic structure. Somebody did somebody else wrong. That was the easy part. Cases like that started with the same bund of notes, the same basic chords, but each client had their own special way of playing it. But this case was different. This one was more like a concerto, with an inviolable score written in tiny black notes. The orchestra had started playing before Rolly arrived. All he had was a triangle to play with." Reading Black's Beach Shuffle is a lot like listening to, and enjoying, a complicated piece of music. It's complex but not confusing. And as Rolly slowly begins to understand how the various components fit together, a clear picture emerges of who took the missing key and more importantly why it was taken.
Fayman wisely shows some restraint in this tightly plotted book with well drawn characters in believable situations. Black's Beach Shuffle is a terrific start to this series and readers will be looking forward to Rolly's next mystery.
Special thanks to Author Marketing Experts for providing a copy of Black's Beach Shuffle for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
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