Adult Review: Written in Dead Wax (Vinyl Detective #1)

Written in Dead Wax: the Vinyl Detective book 1.
Andrew Cartmel

Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 5/5

The Vinyl Detective is a British record collector who brags that he can find any record and then gets his chance to prove it. A woman named Nevada shows up in his small town with one of his business cards; turns out she's working for a high-class record collector in Japan. And then the bodies start showing up...

I want to run to the office of my library's collection manager and demand that she order the rest of this series immediately. Andrew Cartmel is a playwright and screenwriter who has done work for Torchwood and the Midsomer Murders, both of which I adore, and he was a script editor for Doctor Who at one point. To say he's already proved himself capable of working a story-line would be an understatement.

The Vinyl Detective benefits from a lilting sense of humor, Cartmel's lightning quick dialog, and a cast of unruly misfits who still manage to get the job done. The characters were engaging and unique, though I was mildly troubled by the trope-ishness of his female characters. Nevada and Ree both redeem themselves by the end of the story and Fanny and Turk require no redeeming. Because they're cats.

The story does have two distinct parts, noted as "Side One" and "Side Two." They almost read like separate but interconnected novellas. This wasn't a problem for me, but it was a little startling since Side Two takes the protagonist from Britain to California in only a few phrases. I also spent a good portion of the last few rising-action chapters yelling at the characters for not seeing such an obvious conclusion. I had figured out the major story, though Cartmel did throw me for a loop in the final resolution of the story. The ending was satisfying, though demanded additional books because I'm not ready to leave this bunch digging in used vinyl crates and taking steam baths with cats.

A side note: I have not mentioned the main character's name because I noticed 2/3rds of the way through the book that he doesn't seem to have one. The whole story is told first-person and no one ever calls him by a legal name. He gets a few nicknames, but that's all. I was embarrassed about this because it took me so long to notice.

To sum up: I recommend this book highly for fans of mystery, technical geekery, Jazz history, and cats.

Adult Review: The Best of Adam Sharp

The Best of Adam Sharp
Graeme Simsion

Overall Rating: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Writing: 5/5

The Best of Adam Sharp introduces the character of Adam Sharp, a musician who has a day job in information technology. While Adam is a very talented pianist, he limits himself to noodling around with the piano at his favorite pub. Adam has been content in his life, living with his partner, Clare, and knocking 'em dead in music trivia at the pub quiz challenge. Re-enter Angelina Brown, a TV actress with whom Adam had a brief affair in his twenties. It starts with something simple, a single word email that mushrooms into a wild romp across several countries and many different states of mind.

I loved this book, honestly. I picked it up on the recommendation of a patron who knows my tastes and she was dead on, as usual. This book also found me in a strange point in my life, so some of the off-kilter nature of Adam's mid-life crisis was familiar to me, even though he is 15 years my senior. The book is peppered with musical references, both to pop music of the 60s and 70s and to obscure musicians and how all of this can weave together to make a sound track of your life. To continue this theme, the publishers also made a Spotify playlist called "Music to Read By" which contains all of the music referenced in the story (that's available on Spotify), in the order it's mentioned in the story. Listening to this playlist while reading the book really added to my experience of immersion in the world and was an inspired touch.

The plot moves slowly in places, but in a way that feels like it's supposed to feel slow, as if the world has shifted perspective and everything is seen in the disjointed flashes of stop-motion or a strobe light in a dark club. Likewise, the characters are not always likable, though I feel like I could sit down with Adam and have a pint easily. Likability aside, they are excellently developed and you can see Adam's progression from his twenties to his late forties, how life and experience shapes him and renders things from the past nostalgic if vague. Simsion's writing carries a voice that I could almost hear, a rhythmic, musical language that made me very attached to Adam by the end of the story.

A warning to those who have read the Rosie books: This is not the Rosie Project. While I haven't read his other work, I have been told by those that have that The Best of Adam Sharp is a widely different experience, harsher in places and with an ending that seems sad to some, but felt logical and satisfying to me. I encourage everyone to read it, but just be aware that it's a very different story that showcases the author's flexibility. In particular, I would recommend this to adults in their late thirties through late forties who may remember the music without needing the playlist. Men and women will take different things away from the story and I feel it would be interesting to both.