Peggy Ehrhart - Got No Friends Anyhow

Got No Friends Anyhow

Peggy Ehrhart

Five Star, Feb 9 2011, $25.95

ISBN: 9781594149320

Maxx Maxwell is the lead singer of the Maxximum Blues band. She has big hopes that a CD her boyfriend Rick Schneider is producing for the band will help them with getting gigs in Manhattan. However, when she goes out to his home in Nyack, New York, he is missing. Initial evidence implies he returned to his former girlfriend Brenda Honeycutt, which would break Maxx's heart for the second time; guitar player Sandy being the first.

However, .she becomes concerned when she notices dried blood on the wall in his home. Maxx also wonders what happened to the CD master that should have been in Rick's studio, but is not. Soon after her visit, Rick is found dead executed by a bullet to his head. The cops assume Rick was killed by the mob for selling pirated CDs. However, Maxx has doubts that he would betray her. Wanting her band's master, she starts investigating looking into when Rick played with Meal back in the 1980s; she is stunned to learn two other band members are also dead with two still surviving for now.

The second blues amateur sleuth (see Sweet Man Is Gone) is an enjoyable look at the Manhattan (and Hackensack) music scene in which Peggy Ehrhart describes literally a cutthroat competition with piracy adding to the criminal activity. The story line is fun to follow as the magic of the blues is in murder not music leading to an entertaining gig.

Harriet Klausner