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Sweet Man Is Gone (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery)
 
 
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Sweet Man Is Gone (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) [Hardcover]

Peggy Ehrhart (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)


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Book Description

July 18, 2008 Five Star First Edition Mystery
Blues-singer Maxx Maxwell is smart, talented, and gorgeous--at least since she had her nose fixed, went blonde, and bought a push-up bra. So what if she’s living in a scruffy apartment in Hackensack, New Jersey, and the waitress job she’s taken to make ends meet is driving her crazy? Her band, Maxximum Blues, is really taking off, thanks to the talents of guitarist Jimmy Nashville, a heartbreakingly handsome guy whose life is complicated by an assortment of girlfriends.

But then Jimmy plunges to his death from the window of his ninth-floor apartment. His death intensifies tensions already simmering in the band, and Maxx fears her dream of making it as a singer might just as well be dead too. Besides, she has to admit that, though she was trying to resist his charm, she was as smitten with Jimmy as were the other women in his life.

When Jimmy’s death is ruled suicide, Maxx resolves to go sleuthing on her own.

Cozy but cool, Sweet Man Is Gone features a quirky cast of characters that include a skeptical cop and an assortment of eccentric musicians. Maxx’s quest, played out against a backdrop of blues and Manhattan bar bands, uncovers a surprising number of people who had reason to kill Jimmy, and it takes her deep into Jimmy’s mysterious past.

The plot, with its surprising and dramatic climax, will keep readers guessing until the last few pages.
--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

A blues singer turns detective when her guitarist's death is ruled a suicide.

After one bad relationship with a guitar man, Maxx Maxwell has kept her distance from sexy, talented Jimmy Nashville. But when she arrives at his upper Manhattan apartment to pick him up for a gig, she's stunned to learn that his body has just been discovered in the alley outside. Unable to believe Jimmy killed himself, Maxx keeps calling Stallings, the soon-to-be-retired cop in charge of the case, with contrary evidence. She discovers a tape and some handwritten music in Jimmy's apartment that lead to a recently deceased country singer who led a life just made for sad country songs. When Maxx discovers Jimmy's latest girlfriend, wrist slashed, in her tub, she's even more convinced that a killer is loose and keeps bombarding an uninterested Stallings with theories. Meanwhile, her band is going through problems of its own. After temporarily taking on a guitarist she'd once fired, Maxx begins to wonder if he murdered Jimmy. A mysterious stranger Jimmy had words with at their rehearsal studio brings the case to a boil worthy of a New York summer. Maxx will need all her considerable street smarts and every lucky break she can catch before the puzzle is finally solved.

Maxx's debut has a real feel for the bar-music scene and a gutsy, believable sleuth. --Kirkus Review (5/15/08)

"In Sweet Man Is Gone, Peggy Ehrhart gives us Maxx Maxwell, blues band lead singer who doesn't return phone calls from her mother, owns more exotic outfits than Barbarella and has a fatal weakness for guitar players. In an evocative, stripped-down writing style, Ehrhart drops us smack dab in the middle of the New York indie music scene and Maxx's struggle to solve the mystery surrounding the death of a bandmate, never sparing the grit, humor and hand-to-mouth nature of this intriguing world she clearly knows firsthand. A satisfying debut that reads as much like memoir as a work of fiction-so effective is Ehrhart's voice and narrative skill." --Mark Coggins, Shamus and Barry award-nominated author of Runoff

I'm not much in the way of a literary critic, but I do like a good mystery and I do like reading about blues. So, when Peggy Ehrhart sent me a copy of her blues mystery, Sweet Man Is Gone, I looked forward to escaping into both of those worlds and Peggy proves that she has a knack and knowledge for the genres, both literary and musical. I know blues music well enough to spot someone who writes with reference books at their elbows versus having a knowledge bank based in experience and I have a pretty good bluff meter for those professing to know the music. I've read enough mysteries to at least know what I'm looking for in the area of a suspenseful tale. Peggy's got it down on both accounts.
Ehrhart's mystery works very well and she drops the right number of hints and twists along the way to keep the interest level high and the reader in suspense, like good mysteries should. The book should appeal to not only blues fans, but anyone who enjoys a good mystery and has a hankering for a tenacious female detective, who can belt them out like Etta James. Sweet Man Is Gone is a great read and it'll add a little insight for those that don't know the blues and be mighty interesting to those that do. --From Ricky Bush, Back in the Day

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 245 pages
  • Publisher: Five Star (July 18, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1594146683
  • ISBN-13: 978-1594146688
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,749,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peggy Ehrhart is a former English professor who lives in New Jersey, where she writes mysteries and plays blues guitar. She holds a doctorate in Medieval Literature, and her publications include a prize-winning nonfiction book. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Peggy's stories have appeared in numerous venues, both print and online. As a guitar player, she has performed with bands in the New York City area. Her blues mystery, SWEET MAN IS GONE, was published by Five Star/Gale/Cengage in 2008. The sequel, GOT NO FRIEND ANYHOW, is now out.

 

Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (6)
3 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Cool New Sleuth!, July 21, 2009
This review is from: Sweet Man Is Gone (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)
The New York metro blues scene forms a colorful backdrop for Peggy Ehrhart's first mystery--and, I hope, the first of a long series. Maxx is a gutsy and likeable amateur sleuth, passionate about her music and loyal to her fellow musicians. But is one of them a murderer? I enjoyed spending time in her cool world and seeing if I could solve the mystery before she did!

--Eileen Watkins, New Jersey
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots and lots of jazz, October 28, 2008
By 
Marilynne Smith (North County, San Diego) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sweet Man Is Gone (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)
I loved the title even before I read the book. Sweet man is gone and we want to find out if it was murder or suicide. The police think it's suicide and our heroine thinks it's murder.

The story is woven around the jazz scene: the practice rooms, the people, the little clubs where they play while hoping for a break.

I enjoyed it all. I can't wait for the next book.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Music and Murder in Manhattan, May 2, 2009
By 
David Daniel (Westford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sweet Man Is Gone (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)
Peggy Ehrhart's Sweet Man is Gone hits a great groove. Introducing female amateur sleuth Maxx Maxwell, the novel gives promise of a fine new series that uses music as its backdrop. I confess to being a bit skeptical at first of the use of present tense for the narrative--something more commonly found in "literary" fiction. However, I was soon won over, largely due to the charm of Maxx's voice. Ehrhart also demonstrates a real insider's feel for the world of music: especially the smoky subculture of the blues (though there's jazz, rock, and even some country & western, too). I look forward to more entries in the series.
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