Customer Reviews

London Calling - Book #3 of the JP Kinkaid Chronicles

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Speaking as both a writer and a musician, I almost always avoid novels about writers and musicians like the latest flu virus. But Deborah Grabien's latest entry in her series of mysteries centering around the world and the members of an English rock band not only keeps up her usually classy standard, but elevates it a notch. This one's a genuine thriller, at once scarily suspenseful and filled with remarkable insights into both musicians and their fans. Her narrative style never falters, and neither does her precise understanding of the costs and trade-offs of the touring life. And her narrator - the aging, MS-plagued guitarist J.P. Kinkaid - remains as good and painfully honest company as ever. It's best (though not absolutely necessary, by any means) to start at the beginning of the series, with ROCK AND ROLL NEVER FORGETS - but at all events, don't miss this one!

ms. grabien has done it again with the latest installment in the kinkaid chronicles. truthfully i'd enjoy reading about JP, bree and the blacklight clan without benefit of the murder mystery! the backstage and behind the scenes access is always fascinating and authentic and i've come to love the characters. they're like real people... people i know and care about. when you add the author's engaging story telling, full of cool twists and revelations... here's me hungrily awaiting number four.

There is a twisted murder mystery at the heart of the latest JP Kinkaid, London Calling, a fair amount about Cannes and what goes into Blacklight's appearance there, and the parts many of us love most about rock and roll and inside, backstage. But what's really gorgeous about the third in Grabien's series is how completely it lets us inside of John's head. He's a guy, a rock and roll guy, he's famous, he's over 50, and he's got ms. He also has just married Bree, the woman he's loved for decades, and he's trying to figure out her, and his feelings, and her devotion, and her strength. But he's a guy, and there's a lot of scary stuff going on. Grabien lets us know completely how hard it is for him to work this out without dumbing him down or making him silly.
I can hardly for the next one.

So JP Kinkaid, guitarist in the wildly famous and long-lived rock band Blacklight, has finally married the love of his life, Bree, after the rough times depicted in the first two books in the series. Now they're off for some fun. A honeymoon in London where he can finally show his old home town off to his wife. Of course there are unwelcome shades from the past... JP's first wife and her trashed house that they need to close down. And then there's an old film that featured Blacklight that was buried years ago, but is being brought out again for Cannes by its famous director, Sir Cedric Parmeley, edited to better please the bands that nixed the original version.

A concert by Blacklight in Cannes brings the band together with a '60s era group and a punk band, also featured in the film. The punk band had meant to be the sign of the future when the film was made, but time and drugs and other forms of self-destruction meant that Blacklight had outlived both the other bands (as well as most any others in the film or not). Not that dangerous living hadn't touched Blacklight, as JP's life could illustrate... But he's over that and doesn't want to have it all thrown into his face, or more importantly, into Bree's face. Unfortunately, this is a mystery and the happy honeymoon begins to implode in Cannes when trouble comes as a virtual downpour with fights between bodyguards, racism, insanity, suspicion, arrests, explosions, death and destruction.

The mystery makes for a page-turning suspenseful plot, but the world of an aging, but still head-lining arena-playing band with members who aren't all stupid, shallow stereotypes, make this book and the series much too fun and fascinating to ignore. Dropping names and taking private flights and hiring villas is a small part because it's no big deal to these people (nor should it be). I love that. It's just great fun to get a glimpse into such a life and see the problems and normalcy of it, along with the bits of glitter and glam.

Private jets, custom-designed axes,Cannes Film Festival, Jimmy Choo shoes, and murder! I can't think of any mystery that's more fun than this one! We're drawn in from the very first phone call - not from London, but from the south of France - a frantic cry for help from JP Kinkaid himself. Without spoiling the action, I'll tell you this is my favorite in this series of rock-n-roll mysteries so far. Pick it up, and you won't stop reading until the very last page!

London Calling is the third in the series and my favorite so far. If you're a rock music fan or a mystery lover, you should enjoy this one. Great characters, lots of suspense and a fun read. Highly recommended.

I've loved the Kincaid Chronicles since the beginning, and this is one spectacular entry. It was so especially tight with suspense and brilliant that when I was finished reading it, I held on to it, and didn't want to hand it over to my boyfriend for his turn. Ghosts of the past just keep jumping out at JP and Bree and the band. And, wow, if these were real ghosts, they would be poltergeists. The raw emotions of the characters are as harrowing as the situations that crop up.