St. Barts Breakdown [Hardcover]

Don Bruns (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2008

Rock and roll journalist Mick Sever is back with a new assignment: interview music legend Danny Murtz.

Murtz's walls are lined with platinum records, but his closet is full of skeletons.

Known for producing an unbelievable string of hits, Murtz is also tied to a string of disappearances. Seems a number of Murtz's romantic conquests have vanished into thin air. After his latest incident, Murtz conveniently retreats to his secluded St. Bart villa.

Before Mick can hop a plane to the island, he's nearly run down by a speeding car. Coincidence? Maybe, but hitmaker Danny Murtz and near misses go hand in hand.

After receiving anonymous threats, Murtz is convinced: someone wants to bring him down. Even his longtime secretary Nancy, and attorney/manager/cleaner-upper Harvey Schwartz are suspect. And that meddlesome Mick Sever is digging too deep.

If Danny Murtz has his way, Mick will only need a one-way ticket to paradise. Because if Mick isn t careful, his next column will be an obituary his obituary.

Sun, sand and a psychopath: it's a deadly mix.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Bruns's mildly diverting fourth mystery to feature rock journalist Mick Sever (after 2006's South Beach Shakedown), Sever flies to a Caribbean island known as a haven for the rich and famous to interview Danny Murtz, a highly successful rock music producer who in his day turned out hit singles employing a unique orchestral sound. (Murtz will remind many of the real-life Phil Spector.) Murtz's lawyer and all-around fixer insists Murtz proceed with the interview while the lawyer tries to cover up the most recent death of a young woman with whom the producer was involved. Murtz, whose always erratic behavior has become dangerously more so, decides he can take care of his own problems, including a nosy journalist. Full of one-dimensional characters and implausible situations, this slight novel offers no insight into the world of rock from either the point-of-view of a journalist or a producer. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Reviewed by Steve Glassman



Take a Phil Spector-like pop-music producer. Make him a near billionaire by virtue of his clever ability to purloin lyrics and tunes from others in the business. Replace his weird hair-dos with recreational hankerings on the order of single-malt scotches, the usual assortment of back-alley pharmaceuticals, and a bad habit of murdering wannabe female crooners. Then stir him into an island in which no criminal homicide has ever been committed -- and never will be committed -- because the tourist economy would suffer. Add a Galahad in the way of a celebrity journalist assigned to interview the producer. Make the last starlet-victim telephone the scribbler just before she goes over the balcony. And you have the recipe for a Caribbean E-thriller with a ring tone amazingly like the near-Caribbean thrillers of Tim Dorsey and Tom Corcoran. --BOOKLIST, November 15, 2007

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Oceanview Pub (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933515120
• ISBN-13: 978-1933515120
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,043,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Don Bruns is a novelist, advertising executive, musician, songwriter, cook and painter who has no idea what he wants to do when he grows up. He's the author of nine books and was editor of the mystery/music anthology A Merry Band Of Murderers.

Don's published novels cover two series. One, a Caribbean thriller collection and two, the Stuff series, a humorous look at two twenty-four year old guys in South Florida who start their own detective agency and end up neck - deep in trouble. Skip and James from the Stuff series have often been compared to grown up versions of the Hardy Boys.

Jamaica Blue, Barbados Heat, South Beach Shakedown, St. Barts Breakdown and Bahama Burnout make up the Caribbean books. The Stuff series consists of Stuff To Die For, Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, Stuff To Spy For, and Don't Sweat The Small Stuff- which came out in December 2010. Bruns is currently working on the fifth Stuff book, Too Much Stuff.

His two series have won numerous awards, and the latest "Stuff" series has won a starred review in Booklist.

"Will remind the reader of Tim Dorsey's cast of whacked-out characters but with the narrative voice and feel of Mark Twain's Huck Finn."

Traveling the Caribbean for his Mick Sever series, or hovering around Miami for his "Stuff" series, Bruns enjoys the writing life. You can find him at http://www.donbrunsbooks.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Swim Away...., February 3, 2009

By 

EH (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: St. Barts Breakdown (Paperback)

In Delta's Sky Magazine Mr. Bruns states he writes books in island locales to give people a "$4,000 vacation for $24.95". Pardon being direct, but it was more like a self-administered root canal. The story was predictable, the characters one-dimensional, the facts overly repeated and the descriptions of St Barts inaccurate and highly generalized - almost as if a few ideas were taken from a guidebook.

Perhaps my expectations were too high as both a recovering musician and frequent visitor to St. Barts who knows its people, its culture and the details of the island. But even without my knowledge of the island, I believe had Mr. Bruns spent a more time on both the content and the venue the outcome would have been far better.

In Delta Sky, he also stated he can expense his trips to the islands because his writing is his work. I appreciate writing well is difficult and Mr. Bruns style clearly has potential and I applaud his ingenuity to creatively fund his passion of writing and travel - however, it will be short-lived if the results are books like St. Barts Breakdown. One positive, perhaps there will be fewer people interested in discovering the unique paradise that is St. Barts.

2.0 out of 5 stars Page Turner, June 16, 2011

By 

Frank Blank - See all my reviews

This review is from: St. Barts Breakdown (Hardcover)

This is a quick read. Man, is it a quick read. What i mean is, it's a really really really quick read --- mainly because there isn't one sentence in it that requires a millisecond's thought. In fact, you can skip a quarter to a third of the sentences to enhance the effect.

1.0 out of 5 stars An Author With A Lot Of Friends....NO Doubt, June 1, 2011

By 

lydonkey (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: St. Barts Breakdown (Kindle Edition)

Mr Bruns is indeed a fortunate fellow to have so many loyal and devoted friends willing to write glowing reviews filled with outrageous hyperbole about a novel that is pedestrian at it's very best. An overly contrived and cliche ridden "plot" (I use that word generously) littered with cardboard characters and non-sequitur and nonsensical events. As suspected and noted by a previous reviewer, who was obviously not one of those Bruns acquaintances, the author either spent no time on the island or came one day, did a taxi-borne island tour, and left the same day. Although not the worst part of the book and allowing for "literary license", his descriptions of the geography of the island is fanciful and highly inaccurate. Nor is there, even today, any such thing as a regularly running bus system servicing the island! All in all, the book was more of a St Barts let-down. The best thing about it was that I received it as a gift from someone who knew of my affection for the island so I did not buy it! Oh, I did read it all the way to the end, it was kind of like the "train wreck" syndrome, I had to see just how bad it would get.