Modern life seems to have a soundtrack for everything. Even crime.

CRIME + MUSIC: The Sounds of Noir, collects twenty darkly intense, music-related noir stories by world-renowned mystery authors Brendan DuBois, Alison Gaylin, Craig Johnson, David Liss, Val McDermid, Gary Phillips, Peter Robinson and, from the music world, Galadrielle Allman, author of Please Be With Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman and award-winning songwriter-novelist Willy Vlautin. Edited by novelist and Wall Street Journal rock and pop music critic Jim Fusilli.

The lively anthology’s chilling, sinister tales tap into the span of rock and pop history, ranging from Peter Blauner’s heart-wrenching “The Last Temptation of Frankie Lymon” to Fusilli’s “Boy Wonder,” set in the world of contemporary electronic dance music; from Naomi Rand’s “The Misfits,” a punk-rock revenge saga to Mark Haskell Smith’s menacingly comedic “1968 Pelham Blue SG Jr.”; from Reed Farrel Coleman’s study of a one-hit wonder, “Look at Me/Don’t Look at Me” to Erica Wright’s account of betrayal among minor talents in “A Place You’re Likely to Find”—and many more.

In the hands of these modern masters of mystery fiction, CRIME + MUSIC exposes the nasty side of the world of popular music, revealing it to be the perfect setting for noir.

The Copper Bracelet  --  a collaboration serial thriller

-- conception by Jeffery Deaver

Book 2 of The Watchlist aka the Harold Middleton series

Other authors involved:  

Gayle Lynds, David Hewson, Jim Fusilli, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Lisa Scottoline, David Corbett, Linda Barnes, Jenny Siler, David Liss, P.J. Parrish, Brett Battles, Lee Child, Jon Land, James Phelan

This book is a collaborative effort among various crime thriller novelists, with Jeffery Deaver fronting the project (he created the main protagonist, Harold Middleton, and he also writes the first and last chapters).  I don't know all of these other crime thriller authors, though I think some of them were part of the first book's writing... and some are new names.

I was just as intrigued with it as I had been with The Chopin Manuscript (my review), though I had been worried that the book would be a big mess with so many minds and so many ideas trying to take precedent. And despite The Chopin Manuscript getting slightly out of control towards the middle and the ending, it was still a very enjoyable piece... if you can ignore a lot of the mess.

Whether this book was really a big haphazard, narrative mess, or if it was just me, being distracted at all the wrong times while listening to the audiobook, I can't be sure. But I sure as hell had a hard time following what was going on with so much going on within moments of events.

It's a pretty good concept that has potential to last a few more books, honestly. Harold Middleton is pretty much the leader of a group of Volunteers who are tasked with helping keep the world a safe place by going after potential terrorist threats and the like. And, of course, in The Copper Bracelet, there's a lot of action, and traveling, and secrets, and secret reveals, and death, and destruction, and betrayals, and torture, and... there's just a LOT going on in this book.

Like I said already, I had no idea where the book was going with all the things happening for a good long time.

Still, I had fun with this one. Even if it was a lot of confusing fun.

And once again, Alfred Molina did excellent with his narration; though I can't help but feel that it was better in the first book.

This is the first collaboration of The Watchlist by various authors.  The concept and character of Harold Middleton, the main protagonist of this book, was created by Jeffery Deaver.

Other authors involved:

Peter Spiegelman, Ralph Pezzullo, Lisa Scottoline, Lee Child, Joseph Finder, David Hewson, S.J. Rozan, Erica Spindler, P.J. Parrish, John Ramsey Miller, Jim Fusilli, David Corbett, James Grady, John Gilstrap

I'm reminded of a time in high school when several of my classmates spent a free day sitting around when someone slipped a sheet of paper onto my desk. It had the words, "Once upon a time, there was a teenage girl named Alice." Without hesitation, I had grinned and added the sentence, "She was sitting in school one day when the ground began to shake." And then I handed the paper over to one of my closest friends sitting next to me. As the paper circulated between a few other girls, "Alice" managed to slip down a rabbit hole, fight dragons in the underworld, and meet up with a hunky knight who was also a warlock.

We never finished the story. The progression began to get out of hand and then class ended and the notebook paper scribbled with the gibberish of "Alice's" adventure was left in the trash on our way out. I regret not taking and saving the writing--it would have made for some good material for future reference.

But this is what I thought about as I listened to The Chopin Manuscript. I worried that several authors with differing writing styles, ideals, and behaviors would create an incoherent product as we did. But the difference is that we were a bunch of teenagers fooling around.

The Chopin Manuscript was a challenge to create an epic serial thriller between fellow crime thriller authors.

I'm not familiar with any of the authors in this collaboration, but I know the names--heard of them before as popular crime thriller/action/mystery writers. I thought the project was an interesting one.

Harold Middleton is a former war crime investigator, but due to circumstances, has given up that life to study music.  He is in possession of The Chopin Manuscript of which he believes is a forgery.  But this musical piece proves to be involved in a deadly conspiracy of international proportions as many people involved begin to turn up dead.  The danger comes closer to home when Harold Middleton realizes that he's been drawn into the sinister workings of shadowy mystery man known only as Faust.

The concept seemed created as any typical action thriller, maybe made-for-movie entertainment. I didn't find anything overly unique about the story line or the characters, but the book was as enjoyable as any action movie I've seen in the past. It probably helps a little bit that I listened to the audio book version, narrated by Alfred Molina. I believe that this story was originally created as an audio book, which helped since I'm not sure I would have read this book otherwise--not because the book is terrible or anything, but probably because it's just not my cuppa.

I can't say that they didn't accomplish their mission. The story turned out quite well and I was fairly hooked from the beginning. The background music and Alfred Molina's stellar performance might have been incentive--I was pleasantly surprised at his ability to move from one foreign accent to another and even take on sounding American so naturally. It was pretty cool.

In the beginning, The Chopin Manuscript felt exciting with plots developing and characters surfacing with hidden agendas. But as the story progressed, you could start to see the presence of several minds competing against how they wanted the story to unfold, yet also trying to remain within the scope of the original concept. It was barely there, but the way certain scenes twisted were different from others and the way the story progressed felt sudden and haphazard. It took some time to figure out what significance each character played, and with some, their significance didn't seem to stand out despite having a heavy presence throughout the book--then they were killed off and it felt a little awkward and sudden.

A lot of times, I found myself asking why certain conflicts were introduced only to fizzle out.

But the story itself, as a whole, was quite entertaining.


Overall Impression: Typical action/crime thriller plot you would see in a lot of action movies involving government conspiracies, secret organizations, international conflicts... the like. Enjoyable.

Alfred Molina's performance was the best part of the whole ordeal, though and I'd be interested in looking up any other audio book he has narrated.