Book Review: Andrew Cartmel - Written in Dead Wax

A pre-reading browse told me I was going to like this book. As early as page 11 (p. 3 of the actual story) magical names such as Max Roach, Red Mitchell, George Wallington and the Gil Melle Sextet (on Blue Note) are mentioned in passing. Obviously, an author who knows his vinyl.

Like all good detective stories, there are so many twists and turns as to make a synopsis almost impossible except to say that the Vinyl Detective collects, buys and sells vinyl. Sometimes for great profit, sometimes against great odds.

Modern jazz is his specialty and if you're looking for the rarest record ever, the Vinyl Detective's your man.

To this aim, he scours charity shops, car boot sales, in fact anywhere where an elusive LP may be found. Sometimes faced with violence and, sometimes, even getting shot at.

I do the same thing myself in an amateurish sort of way which is probably why I've never faced violence or been shot at.

That the Vinyl Detective (I don't think we ever learn his name in this first person narrative) is also a cat person does him no harm in my eyes, after all, so was Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. And there is a certain Chandleresque feel to it as he goes down the mean streets of our capital city.

The action moves with the speed of a Tubby Hayes tenor solo. A heady cocktail of murder, jazz, femme fatalés, felines and a selection of characters that wouldn't have been out of place in The Maltese Falcon.

A compulsive read.

Lance.

Andrew Cartmel - Written in Dead Wax - Published by Titan Books in 2016