Bird Lives!

The murder of a saxaphone player and the enigmatic message left at the scene of the crime draw musician-turned-amateur sleuth Evan Horne into the search for a killer targeting jazz musicians. Reprint.

Practicing is one thing; working a gig, keeping things popping for two sets is another. That's the inside-the-head riff that makes jazz pianist Evan Horne, back for a fourth outing, jumpier than Tiger Rag. Its only when he actually starts to play that he can relax, that he knows he can trust the right hand so badly injured in a car smash-up. The gig goes well. Immediately in its wake comes a record offer. Evan is feeling good about his futureuntil, that is, he gets that phone call from Danny Cooper, a Santa Monica police lieutenant and very old friend. Danny needs Evans specialized insider help. A sax player has been found stabbed to death. But not just any sax player. Ty Rodman was a star, the kind jazz purists love to hate for his unabashed commercialism. Could that possibly be a motive for murder? Cooper wants Evan to find out. And, please, what does Bird Lives! mean, scrawled that way on Rodman's dressing-room wall? Evan explains the reference to the legendary Charley Bird Parker and then, inexorably, as so often in the past (The Sound of the Trumpet, 1997, etc.),finds himself where he'd rather not besmack in the middle of a murder investigation. His girl doesn't want him there, a certain FBI agent is clearly ill-disposed, yet Evan can't get out from under. Before the case finally breaks, three more musicians are dead at the hands of a merciless serial killer. And Evans own life has been changed, perhaps irrevocably. The jazz moments are high energy, vividly rendered; the mystery itself, though, is curiously pianissimo. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.