The Vinyl Detective Series
Written In Dead Wax
Blurb
He is a record collector and a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the Vinyl Detective, and some people take this more literally than others.
For example, the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording on behalf of an extremely wealthy yet shadowy client. And so begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all….
The Run-Out Groove
Blurb
When a mint copy of the final album by Valerian – England’s great lost rock band of the 1960s – surfaces, all hell breaks loose. Finding this record triggers a chain of events culminating in our hero learning the true fate of the singer of Valerian, who died under equivocal circumstances just after…or was it just before the abduction of her two-year-old son?
Along the way the Vinyl Detective finds out what happened to the missing child, and it wasn’t what anyone expected – or wanted – to hear.
Victory Disc
Blurb
When one of his cats accidentally discovers a rare Victory Disc, the Vinyl Detective and his girlfriend, Nevada, are whisked into the world of big band swing music and a mystery that began during the Second World War.
Hired to track down the rest of the highly sought-after recordings of the Flare Path Orchestra, our hero will discover that the battles of the last world war aren’t over yet. And if all this sounds simple, it’s only because we haven’t mentioned drive-by shootings, murderous neo-Nazis, or that slight case of being buried alive….
Flip Back
Blurb
It’s all Tinkler’s fault. If it weren’t for his obsession with the 1970s band Black Dog, none of this would have happened.
The members of Black Dog performed an infamous publicity stunt on Halig Island: they burned a million dollars on an enormous bonfire. But the stunt backfired, splitting the band for good and increasing the value of their final, recalled album tenfold.
The Vinyl Detective and Nevada accept the challenge to hunt a copy down for Tinkler but soon realize that the search is going to be their most dangerous yet. Narrowly avoiding a killing spree, negotiating deranged fans and being pursued by hack celebrity Stinky Stamner, they discover that perhaps all was not as it seemed on Halig Island – and that in the embers of that fire are clues of a motive for murder….
Low Action
Blurb
Semi-retired god of rock guitar and local poseur Erik Make Loud has got himself a new girlfriend. Helene Hilditch – formerly known as Howlin’ Hellbitch – of all-girl punk outfit Blue Tits is a mean guitarist, and someone is trying to kill her. With a rare pressing of their first album to find, the Vinyl Detecive and Nevada are soon called into to help, but this time the question is, who isn’t a suspect?
With a trail of grudges behind her, the list of people who could want Helene dead includes her ex-bandmates, their former producer turned record label mogul, the TV presenter who Helene got fired – even their old roadie could be in on it.
Attack and Decay
Blurb
The Vinyl Detective plunges into the world of death metal in his sixth adventure. Expect laughs, LPs, cats and the return of fan favourites, Nevada, Tinkler, Stinky Stanmer and more.
The Vinyl Detective goes Scandi noir in his sixth adventure. Disfigured corpse. Check. Grotesque snowman. Check. Headless animals. Check. But in fact the killer is taking their cue not from Scandi noir fiction but another popular Scandinavian export—death metal.
Noise Floor
Blurb
The Vinyl Detective plunges into the world of electronic dance music in his seventh adventure.
Expect laughs, LPs, cats and the return of fan favourites, Nevada, Tinkler, Stinky Stanmer and more.
The Vinyl Detective enters the fraught and frenzied realm of electronic dance music.
Lambert Ramkin aka Imperium Dart, techno trickster and ambient music wizard of the 1990s, has gone walkabout, disappearing from his rather palatial home in Kent.
This isn’t the first time he’s pulled a vanishing act, but he’s never been gone so long before and his wife — wives, actually; it’s complicated — are worried and hire the Vinyl Detective to find the old rascal.
They theorize that wherever the missing man is, he won’t be able to resist turning up at a record fair somewhere in search of 12-inch white label acid house singles, which he collects compulsively.
And no one knows the world of record fairs better than the Vinyl Detective.
They’re not wrong…
Underscore
Blurb
The Vinyl Detective plunges into the world of Italian movie soundtrack music in his eighth adventure that is sure to delight those who love whimsical British cosy crime. Expect laughs, LPs, cats and the return of fan favourites, Nevada, Tinkler, Stinky Stanmer and more.
Some of the greatest (and grooviest) music ever committed to vinyl has come out of Italy.
And some of the greatest music to come out of Italy is the rich diversity of soundtracks composed for the indigenous film industry – particularly for gruesome thrillers known as ‘gialli’. The maestros who composed for these include Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Armand Trovajoli…
And Valerius Passeri.
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