Sweet Man Is Gone
Peggy Ehrhart
Five Star, Jun 2008, $25.95
ISBN: 9781594146688

Blues singer Maxx Maxwell believes her band Maximum Blues is going to hit the big time ever since guitarist Jimmy Nashville joined the group. After practicing at the Feedback Studio for a gig in the Village, Jimmy gets into a dispute with a tall guy, but nothing comes of it.

The next night, Maxx drives from Hackensack to Manhattan to pick up Jimmy and continue on the club where they are performing. Instead she learns Jimmy fell from his ninth floor apartment. She also learns someone cancelled the gig. Unable to resist especially when the cops declare Jimmy committed suicide, Maxx investigates who gave her band the blues. She thinks he was murdered probably by someone who knew him.

This is a fun cozy although realistically Maxx has no time nor should be investigating what happened to her guitarist even if she was attracted to him. Still fans will enjoy the merger of music and murder as the heroine is a delightful caring individual who believes she and her blues band can make it while the support cast is solid as they bring to life mostly the music industry from the rarely seen viewpoint of the dire straits struggle of bands trying to make it while the musicians keep their day job.

Harriet Klausner