Drumsticks [Hardcover]

Charlotte Carter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 2000

Nanette is back in New York City and busy getting over her ex. But when a friend gives her a voodoo doll, Nanettes life seems to turn around. A missing check turns up, and shes even offered a regular gig at a jazz club. Nan is so grateful that she invites the dolls creator, an older woman named Ida Williams, to her first performance. But the gig has only just begun.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nanette Hayes is sassy and brassy, as befits a statuesque street sax player improvising her way through Manhattan, mystery, and murder. After an April in Paris she'd rather forget, Nanette is back in New York, looking for gigs and staking out her favorite corners (without telling her mother, who thinks Nanette is teaching French at NYU). She's hit rock bottom and is crankily content to stay there, when a gift "mojo doll" from Harlem folk artist Ida Williams starts turning her luck around. But when Ida is suddenly shot to death in the middle of Nanette's new uptown gig, the guilt-stricken saxophonist wants to know why. Her investigation takes her from Ida's suspiciously checkered past to the recent murder of Black Hat, a rising young rap star; as Nanette struggles to make sense of these discordant notes, she and her closest friends find themselves whistling in an increasingly threatening dark.

Charlotte Carter, who introduced Nanette in Rhode Island Red and followed it up with Coq au Vin, has a hot property in her heroine, whose independence and wry self-deprecation echo Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone (N Is for Noose, O Is for Outlaw). Nanette's gleeful sense of the absurd will also have readers thinking of Janet Evanovich's New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum (High Five, Hot Six).

Unfortunately, Carter can't quite match Grafton's ability to weave tricky and disturbing plots, nor Evanovich's razor-sharp, dead-on prose. Drumsticks will satisfy readers eager for more of Nanette's quick tongue and keen wit, but its incoherent plot and half-hearted attention to secondary character development too often detract from its heroine's obvious appeal. Turn off the logic switch in your brain, then, and read for the sheer pleasure of Nanette's voice. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly

African-American sax artist Nanette Hayes, a tough New Yorker, returns for her third gig (following Rhode Island Red and Coq au Vin). Nan is as low as she can go--hitting the booze hard, losing contact with friends and drifting until the gift of a voodoo doll seems to change her luck. An unexpected check and a chance to perform regularly at an upscale jazz club rouse her to seek out the voodoo doll's creator, an older woman named Ida Williams, whom she invites on impulse to hear her play. Her good luck ends in opening-night gunfire that leaves Ida dead. The old woman's checkered past, a vendetta among rap artists and an elaborate scam combine to thrust Nan into a maelstrom of violence. In search of answers, Nan finds that she needs her friends--Aubrey, a beautiful exotic dancer, and Justin, a white, witty drag queen. She also needs the help of both her high school principal father, who left her mother to marry a much younger white woman, and gruff NYPD detective Leman Sweet, who proves to be an unexpected guardian angel. Underneath the street trappings and the jazzy, bold sexuality, Nan seems a nice middle-class gal seeking bohemia who instead finds adventure and romance. If Carter doesn't quite convince with this brash first-person narrative, she does manage to entertain. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 213 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; 1st edition (February 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892966793
• ISBN-13: 978-0892966790
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,247,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent mystery with a trace of whoo-whoo, February 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Drumsticks (Hardcover)

Nanette Hayes returns to New York feeling depressed after her Paris relationship with Charlie Rouse ended. Nanette turns to the bottle to help her forget. However, her suicidal binge with alcohol isolates her from her friends and leaves her family worried about her. Life change for Nanette when she receives a voodoo doll as a present. Things suddenly begin happening for Nanette as she obtains work in a jazz club and a check arrives that Nanette gave up on ever obtaining.

A grateful Nanette relishes her new luck that the doll apparently brought with her. Nanette visits the dollmaker to thank the elderly woman, Ida Williams. Nanette invites Ida to watch her perform, but just as she starts to play the sax, someone murders Ida. Feeling guilty for causing her guest's death, Nanette begins to make inquires into the murder, not realizing the danger she places herself in from a cool killer.

DRUMSTICKS, The third Nanette Hayes novel (see the rousing Rhode Island RED and the delightful COQ AU VIN), is an enjoyable amateur sleuth tale. The who-done-it and the why it was done storyline is fun to follow as Nanette and her support crew dig for the truth. Saucy Nanette is an intriguing middle class African-American woman struggling with her identity. Through this protagonist, Charlotte Carter provides her audience with a triumphant novel worth reading.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, March 5, 2000

By 

Faith4lyReading (Studio City, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drumsticks (Hardcover)

Nanette is at it again, I love this series. I laughed and laughed. Charlotte Carter is the one of the best and her Nanette will keep you interested. I can't wait to see what will happen with Andre....

Thank you Charlotte for the entertainment.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth Reading for Nanette, March 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Drumsticks (Hardcover)

If you enjoy character driven mysteries, you'll love Drumsticks. However, the plot was a bit confusing and unbelievable. I gave it 4 stars because despite it's flaws it's always fun to hang out with Nanette Hayes for 200 or so pages!