Last year we had a monthly article about music books and you can find the archive here. We’re continuing the series this year, to bring you books about all sorts of music, aimed at a variety of ages and genres.
It’s October so we’ll share some mysteries and thrillers that feature music as part of the story. If you want more, check out this Goodreads list.
The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket
If you have ever heard an orchestra play, then you know that musicians are most certainly guilty of something. Where exactly were the violins on the night in question? Did anyone see the harp? Is the trumpet protesting a bit too boisterously?
In this perplexing murder mystery, everyone seems to have a motive, everyone has an alibi, and nearly everyone is a musical instrument. But the composer is still dead.
Trouble in the Brasses by Charlotte MacLeod
Although he is a decorated officer of the Mounted Police, Madoc Rhys’s tin ear has long been an embarrassment to his musically fixated family. But when his father’s orchestra needs a policeman, the Mountie gets a chance to make daddy proud. It began as pranks among the brass instruments, but something is rotten inside the Wagstaffe Symphony, and is about to graduate to something criminal. Called in to look into the tensions within the group, Madoc arrives just in time to see the French horn player keel over. The death appears natural, and the orchestra boards the plane to its next engagement. But when a storm forces them to make an emergency landing and take shelter in an eerie old lodge, the extent of the danger becomes clear. Madoc may never understand music, but he has a good ear for murder, and is about to show off his chops.
Murder at Hatfield House by Amanda Carmack
1558. Kate Haywood, a simple musician in the employ of a princess, will find herself involved in games of crowns as she sets out to solve the murder of the queen’s envoy….
Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot (Heather Wells #1)
Heather Wells Rocks!
Or, at least, she did. That was before she left the pop-idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two — and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to Argentina). Now that the glamour and glory days of endless mall appearances are in the past, Heather’s perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York’s top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather’s residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen — not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives — even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective!
Murder on Music Row by Stuard Dill Twenty-three-year-old Judd Nix, an unpaid intern at the most prestigious personal management firm in country music, gets the opportunity of a lifetime when his boss and mentor, Simon Stills, offers him a temporary position—an opportunity that may just cost Judd his life.In a landscape where record companies are under siege, stuck in the old order of physical CDs and antiquated technologies, Simon’s young, electrifying star, Ripley Graham, has emerged as the best-selling digital artist in music history. Meanwhile, Ripley’s label, Galaxy Records, is preparing a secret merger agreement that would create the largest record conglomerate in the world. Trouble arises when rumors spread that Ripley and Simon are withholding Ripley’s new album in hopes of renegotiating his contract.When Simon and Judd are shot on the famed Grand Ole Opry stage during the filming of Ripley’s new music video, no one is more upset than Ripley—especially as everyone assumes the shots were meant for him. While Simon’s life hangs in the balance, Judd seeks help from Megan Olsen, Simon’s right hand and Ripley’s day-to-day manager. The two set off on a high-powered chase to disclose the real motive behind the shootings and spare Ripley from a second murder attempt.
Music Notes by Manning Wolfe In Book #2, Attorney Merit Bridges finds herself in danger again in Music Notes: Texas Lady Lawyer vs L.A. Baron. When client Liam Nolan is slain with his own guitar, Davey Ray Bell shows up claiming to be Nolan’s illegitimate son. L.A. Baron, Nolan’s former manager, makes a back-door music deal and tries to grab the estate for himself. When the probate court pushes Baron out of the power position, he pursues Merit with a vengeance. Using the dark web, he ruins her reputation, destroys her career, and finally attempts to take her life. Who will come out on top of the scales of music and the scales of justice?
