31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You Should Get SWING Now, While the Getting is Good, May 29, 2005
Swing is a lyrical ride to a time where life seemed simpler, but perhaps it wasn't. Europe was refusing admission to Jews. War drums were beating in Europe and Japan. Pearl Harbor was about year away. However, if you wanted to talk on a phone, you used a rotary dial, you could repair your own car and the government was still answerable to the people.
It's 1940 and Ray Sherwood is a sax player on the road with the Jake Donovan Orchestra, who is still suffering over the death of his daughter that happened a long time ago. He is a wise cracking narrator of the Phillip Marlowe school.
When he arrives in San Francisco with the band, there is a message for him at his hotel. A woman named Gail Prentiss, who the desk clerk tells him is young and a looker, wants to meet him for breakfast at the new Treasure Island, built by the Army Corps of Engineers for the Golden Gate Exposition, the West Coast's answer to the recently held World's Fair.
When he arrives for his appointment, another woman sits down, asks him if he's American, when he answers in the affirmative, she proposes. He declines her offer. She leaves and he meets Gail who wants him to score her piano piece for a full orchestra, so it can be played by Japan's Pan Pacific Orchestra during the Exposition. While he is talking to Gail, the woman he'd met earlier plunges to her death from the Exposition's Tower landing literally at his feet.
It turns out she's French, Jewish and wanted to marry Ray or any American, so she could stay in the country. The cops think that is enough of a reason for her to kill herself, her fear of being forced to go back. And Ray is so smitten with Gail that he doesn't think about it. And thus begins a novel of double crosses and double dealings, betrayal and some of the best prewar intrigue you'll ever come across. To say this is a captivating novel that's hard to put down is an understatement. Rupert Holmes has captured a time and place, an era and the people who populated it and he's served it up raw and noir.
This is just an extrordinay work, better than his WHERE THE TRUTH LIES and that is really saying something. Also, as a bonus, at least for now, you get a CD with music by the author that has clues to the story imbedded in the songs. Rupert Holmes, by the way, made his mark as a talented musician before he turned to writing Tony winning plays and novels that are just to delicious to adequately describe, so you will be pleasantly surprised that the CD is not only excellent, but worth every bit as much as the book, a very good reason to get this book now while the getting is good.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Entertaining on All Levels, March 21, 2005
I'm a history buff, so this engaging mystery was right up that proverbial alley for me. I knew very little about the Golden Gate International Exposition and it was grand "exploring" the fair with Ray Sherwood as well as trying to unravel the mystery of the falling body and the complications that snare him deeper into ever-increasing conundrum, especially as his past is revealed. I literally began this book and did not put it down unless I had to; I even ate my dinner with eyes glued more to the page than to my portions. The period feel was excellent. Do listen to the CD--clues abound in the memorable songs.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If Phillip Marlowe played the sax...., May 17, 2005
He'd probably be fairly similar to Rupert Holmes' point of view character, Ray Sherwood.
Sherwood, an arranger and second chair sax player, keeps moving. In many ways, he's too good for the band he's playing in, but he's got to keep some road between him and his past.
It's 1940, San Franciso. He's playing with the Phil Donovan Orchestra at San Francisco's Claremont Hotel.
His first day there, he's set out to meet an Attractive Young Woman (by the desk clerk's standards) who left him a note offering him a proposition. The proposition he gets is from a French Jewish dancer with the Follies Bergere, who wishes to wed an American before she is shipped away....
Only a few minutes later, she ends up dead at his feet--an apparent suicide from the top of the Tower of the Sun, which is part of San Francisco's Exposition Center.
From there, the plot sweeps along. Holmes' writing, like his early lyrics, is witty and engaging. He keeps you guessing til the end.
The photographs of San Francisco in the 1940's as well as the CD soundtrack are wonderful multimedia additions to the whole "Swing" experience. Great job and very much well-written mystery.
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