(Review by Lance)The Vinyl Detective is back! Accompanied by his lovely partner, Nevada, his best friend Tinkler and the unrequited love of the latter's life, Agatha DuBois-Kanes, also known as Clean Head, he sets off on a quest to locate a rare piece of vinyl.
Needless to say, the search doesn't start and end in a charity shop or a record fair, it's never that simple. There are murders and mysteries, even a suggestion of the occult and the dark arts and no one is quite what they seem to be.
Although the record they seek isn't jazz, but folk-rock, there are plenty of jazz references peppering the pages - Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Nat Adderley are mentioned in passing indicating where our hero's heart (and that of the author) lies.
The locale switches from London to an island not unlike Holy Island, if that Northumbrian beauty spot had relocated to a spot just off the coast at Sunderland - references to the A690 and East Herrington add authenticity.
Like the three previous adventures, Flip Back is a page-turner full of humour and crisp dialogue that Chandler or Hammett would have been proud of and, like Hammett's The Continental Op, we never discover the Vinyl Detective's name. There's also the human touch in the way Nevada phones their catsitter to check that the two felines, Turk and Fanny are ok. Don't laugh, it's what we cat-people do.
Highly recommended - can't wait until the next one!
Lance
Lance
Titan books: ISBN 978178565893.
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