The Day the Music Died [Hardcover]

Edward Gorman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999

Sam McCain is a penniless young lawyer who earns most of his keep by doing investigative work for the imperious Judge Eleanor Whitney. The weekend Buddy Holly is killed will prove to be a memorable one for Sam.'

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Veteran mystery writer, editor, and anthologist Ed Gorman plays all the right notes in his latest book--hopefully the first of a promising period series. It's 1959 (the book says 1958, but that must be a mistake, because everyone knows Buddy Holly died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959), and Sam McCain--"a young lawyer in a town that already had too many lawyers"--is working as an investigator in Black River Falls, Iowa, for Judge Esme Anne Whitney, a wealthy and eccentric old woman who smokes Gauloises in Chesterfield country and takes pleasure in shooting McCain with rubberbands while they confer.

The day after a long drive to and from what turns out to be Buddy Holly's last concert before his fatal plane crash, McCain finds the murdered wife of Judge Whitney's rotten nephew, Kenny, and then is unable to stop Kenny from killing himself. Everybody, including the town's loutish police chief, is sure that Kenny killed his wife--only McCain has his doubts.

Complicating things are the troubles of a local black former football star now crippled by booze, and those of McCain's teenage sister who is trying to abort her baby. The period details about race and sex seem dead right; the people of Black River Falls, especially McCain's family and various girlfriends, are all sharply-sketched; and even the very late appearance of a possible villain can't spoil the considerable fun.

Previous examples of Gorman's craft, or sullen art, include Daughter of Darkness, Black River Falls, Dark Trail, The First Lady, Hawk Moon, The Marilyn Tapes, Senatorial Privilege, Trouble Man, and Cage of Night. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

There's a dead-on sense of time and place?February 1958 in small-town Iowa?in Gorman's latest, which, despite minor problems with plot resolution, makes an enjoyable start to a new series. Narrator Sam McCain, "a young lawyer in a town that already had too many lawyers," earns most of his income by working as an investigator in Black River Falls for the wealthy and eccentric Judge Esme Anne Whitney, who smokes Gauloises in Chesterfield country and takes pleasure in shooting McCain with rubber bands. The day after a long drive to what turns out to be Buddy Holly's last concert before his fatal plane crash, McCain discovers the body of the wife of Whitney's rotten nephew, Kenny, and then is unable to stop Kenny from killing himself. Everybody, including the loutish local police chief, is sure that Kenny murdered his wife, but McCain has his doubts. Complicating matters are the troubles of a local former football star now crippled by booze and of McCain's teenage sister, who is trying to get an abortion. Gorman sketches the people of Black River Falls, especially McCain's family and various girlfriends, with a sharp eye, and even the very late appearance of a possible villain doesn't spoil the fun: despite the title, Gorman, as usual, rocks.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers; First edition (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786705698
• ISBN-13: 978-0786705696
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,249,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Easy read, July 26, 2001

By 

bill runyon (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Day the Music Died (Hardcover)

The author has another winning book, but don't expect much stimulation from it; it is an easy read, but that is not a bad thing. The characters and story are interesting, but there isn't much challenge to it, so you can just flow along until the end, and you will have a nice, entertaining time. Unhappily, the author is guilty of having some of his characters be more "politically correct" than would have been the case in '50s Iowa; it seems he is inserting his own sensibilities more often than is reasonable. At that time, people were both good and bad, as in most times, but they weren't as conscious of some of the distinctions then as now. In those days, newspapers and politicians weren't always beating everyone over the head about how they should think, and yelling at us to be so "inclusive." Even the most open-minded people then developed their own ideas and morals, with help from family and close friends, but the media didn't press us with many ideas and names. So the author's characters are nicely done, but their "politically correct" pronouncements are jarring and seem out of place for time and place of the story. But if a nice, easy read is what you need, and all of us do at times, then this should be satisifying.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't get the facts right, May 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Day the Music Died (Hardcover)

Initially, I was really excited and ready to read this "historically accurate" mystery, because I have always loved Buddy Holly's music and the period it came from. All the pre-publication reviews talked about how wonderfully Gorman evoked the period and had researched his subject.

Well, it's difficult to buy into the research the author did, considering he got the date that Buddy Holly died, ie. "the day the music died" WRONG!!! Big time oops.

Tried to get into the book but found it pretty lame for a mystery and worse as historical fiction.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I must be missing something..but I did find a good book!, April 29, 2000

By 

Judith Lindenau "dulcie22" (Traverse City, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Day the Music Died (Sam McCain Mystery) (Paperback)

"Buddy Holly died on February 3, 1959 in a plane crash in Iowa during a snowstorm." Now that's a direct quote from The Fifties Website and it conforms to the date of the first scene in the novel. Frankly, I don't remember the exact date of Buddy's death myself, but that WAS my senior year in high school in a small midwestern town, and I do remember much of the setting and the evocative details of "The Day the Music Died". The accuracy is there, as is the emotions and the social pressures of that age: this story of abortion, murder, and jealousy is in itself a tale of the repressed '50's. It's populated by my long-forgotten friends in poodle skirts and saddle shoes, their uptight parents and repressed aunts and uncles, and the bipolar behavior of a teenaged generation breaking loose from the past. This a wonderful mystery novel: well written, well designed, and suspenseful. I'm anxiously waiting for more novels by Ed Gorman.