USA Today best-selling authorWhen the music stopped, it was murderBack in London’s swinging ’60s, Steve Cook was teen idol number one. But that changed when a sixteen-year-old fan was found dead in his hotel room bed. Steve’s career came to a crashing halt after he was dumped by his record company and arrested. Now, in 1978 San Francisco, Steve works construction, still dreaming of a comeback. … construction, still dreaming of a comeback.
Until his eleven-year-old daughter is kidnapped.
Steve turns to one person for help: Colleen Hayes. She was quite a fan herself, back in the day. And she knows what it’s like to be on the wrong side of the law and live in judgement for the rest of your life.
It doesn’t take Colleen long to realize something fishy is going on with the kidnapping of Melanie Cook. What transpires is a harrowing journey through a music industry rife with corruption and crime. Colleen’s search takes her through San Francisco’s underbelly and all the way to ’70s London, where she discovers a thread leading back to the death of a forgotten fan in Steve’s hotel room.
Perfect for fans of Harlan Coben’s noir suspense
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We are back in time, to the 1960s-1970s – a perfect picture of that world as it were. The songs, the cars, the burnt-orange kitchens, 501 Levis, thirty cents a gallon gas – nostalgia for my generation, and a worthy lesson for the youngsters. I received a free electronic ARC of this historical novel – boy, that hurts my self-image! – from Netgalley, Max Tomlinson, and Oceanview Publishing. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Max Tomlinson writes a tight, compelling story with a fast pace and sympathetic characters. This is the second in a series but completely stand-alone.
Stevie Cook is the 18-year-old songwriter and lead singer in a British boy band, the Lost Chords, in 1966. They have paid their dues and finally – finally! have a hit on their hands and all the bonus attention that goes with that. An Album deal and booze and screaming girls and drugs and maybe even free sex. This is their first taste of the big-time, a show at the Hammersmith Odeon Theatre in London, and a screaming sell-out crowd that makes all the lean meals and disappointed mamas seem minor. But that adage,’ Easy Come, Easy Go’ falls too true for the boys. This is also their last show. Anywhere. Stevie held them together, and now he is running from the law In several countries.
In 1978, in San Francisco, we encounter Steve again, singing lead in a band with no name at The Pitt, a little neighborhood bar in Mission. He still has it, whatever ‘it’ is, but chooses to stay out of the limelight, not content by any means but able to handle his life in pieces. Long after a very contentious divorce, he is the non-custodial father of Melanie, a spoiled, 11-year-old horse-crazy daughter, and Steve has all he can do just to get through the days. Ex-wife Lynda is a real piece of work and makes his relationship with Melanie difficult. And then Melanie is kidnapped.
Colleen, with the help of retired Homicide Officer Moran, is a fairly new private investigator, recently released after a 9-year plus stretch in prison for killing her husband. On probation, she is having difficulty obtaining a proper PI license, and cannot carry a gun. Steve can almost afford to hire her to help him find his daughter. Colleen would help for nothing – her own teenaged daughter Pam is a voluntary prisoner with a cult in Northern California and all Colleen can do is wait for her to see the light. Collie actually recognizes Steve but missed the turmoil that killed his career in England. One of the songs on side B of the Lost Chord’s only album was a favorite of hers when she was a young wife and mother. And she has time on her hands – she and her clapped-out Torino are available to help him find and pay the $20,000 ransom to free Melanie. His ex-wife’s father would loan him the money – Mellie IS his granddaughter – but only if Steve signs over the Lost Chords catalog of copy-written songs. Not as collateral, but as a sale. And the 20 k would be repaid, with interest. The copy-writes have been in contention for about ten years so he has yet to make a cent off of them, but they are all Steve has to show for his life. He finds the money with a gangster but needs someone to deliver it while he retrieves his daughter. Once they figure out where she is, of course. Colleen has a difficult time getting him to understand that now before the money changes hands is the only time he will have any leverage and he must demand proof of life and work out transfer details before he hands over his grey athletic bag of cash. And something about the whole situation strikes Collie as wonky. She has trouble believing how naive Steve is but does her best to steer him in a direction that will keep his daughter safe while she tries to track down the protagonists and suss out Melanie’s location. But it would all be a lot easier if Steve weren’t so appealing. And if she could count on her Torino to start every time she needs it to… Even at just 30 cents per gallon -and Ethel is double that – gas is expensive if you have to leave that big V-8 running all the time or walk back to town from Olema or Point Reyes or even Sheep’s Hole…
Tie Die takes readers into the past, with a story about the often corrupt world of rock ‘n roll in the late ’60s and “current day” in the late ’70s.
Steve Cook was the teen-aged lead singer of a hot British band living the dream until his life fell apart. Drunk, with no memory of how he even got to bed after the concert, he wakes one day to find an under-age girl dead in his bed. He’s arrested, dropped by his record label and soon fades from the public eye.
Fast forward to San Francisco in 1978. Steve is working construction and sometimes singing with a no-name band in a local bar. When his 11 year-old daughter, Melanie, is kidnapped he calls Colleen Hayes, a private investigator who started her own firm Hayes Confidential, for help. It doesn’t take long for Colleen to determine that something about the kidnapping doesn’t ring true.
Colleen is a strong female lead and I enjoyed her character. Tough and confident, she is skilled at uncovering leads and is not afraid to follow up on them. I look forward to reading more about her and the cases she is given to solve.
The book held my interest about 65% of the way through. At that point, even though Colleen was working her game well, the whole thing just started to drag for me and I found myself looking forward to it being over. I give it 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars.
My thanks to NetGalley and Oceanview Publishers for allowing me to read a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.