Cardiff Dead - Softcover

Williams, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1582341451 ISBN 13: 9781582341453

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2001

Synopsis

A page-turning mystery as funny as it is darkly atmospheric.

Returning to the same territory that made his short story collection so compelling, John Williams explores the dark side of city life-the prostitutes, the drug dealers, the crooked businessmen and the people just watching life, trying not to let it pass them by.

It's 1999 and Charlie Unger is dead. Once a champion boxer, then the heart and soul of a band called the Wurriyas, his death draws together the other members of the band, long since broken up after their one hit faded. Mazz makes his way up from England, nervous about facing Charlie's daughter Tyra since things ended badly between them years before. As Mazz tries to reconcile with her, the two of them dig into the suspicions that surround her father's death, unraveling a mystery that is connected to the very city itself.

A brilliant portrait of a city poised on the brink of change, a story about the possibilities of righting past wrongs-Cardiff Dead is a gritty, thrilling tale written straight from the heart.

About this title

About the Author:

John Williams lives and works in his hometown of Cardiff. He is the author of four previous books, most recently Five Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub.

From Publishers Weekly:

Welsh noir, anyone? In this poignant tale of Cardiff lowlifes (to coin a Welsh phrase, "if anything green still grows in my valley it must be marijuana") by Cardiff native Williams (Five Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub), Mazz, a disillusioned over-the-hill rock guitarist, returns home. It was in Cardiff, at 19, that Mazz's promise blossomed momentarily when he and his friend Charlie Unger formed a band called the Wurriyas. They were good, made a record. Mazz wrote a hit song. The dreams got as far as London, then faded out. Now Charlie former lightweight champion of the world is discovered in his hotel room five days after he died, apparently of natural causes. Or did he? Mazz wants to find out because Charlie was his friend, but also because, as with everything else in the lives of people he knew back then, no one cares why it all went to hell. Cardiff is changing. There's a lot of construction: out with the old, make big money on the new. Anyone who stands in the way of progress gets plowed under. Was that what happened to Charlie? Mazz's search for answers leads him to beaches, prostitute hangouts, boardrooms and boxing gyms. The mystery is incidental to the story of Mazz's struggle to come to terms with his past and make a new life for himself, but Williams ties it all together in the end. Besides some effective passages in the present-day narrative, the flashbacks that run throughout chronicling the rise and fall of the Wurriyas are generally the most compelling parts of the book.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1582341451
• ISBN 13: 9781582341453
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 246