Black's Beach Shuffle
A Rolly Waters Mystery
Corey Lynn Fayman
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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Location(s) referenced: San Diego.
