Bill Moody’s first four Evan Horne mysteries are finally available as eBooks! New York Times says “Bill Moody’s characters have life and soul.”
* * *
The first is SOLO HAND. Synopsis: Evan Horne, once a world class pianist, is now a man with a broken hand and a broken career. When former boss, singer Lonnie Cole, asks him to be intermediary in the payment of blackmail, Horne is unable to resist. But trading money for embarrassing photos turns out to be complicated. Pretty soon the money is gone, but the photos haven’t turned up. Instead, there’s a fresh body on the beach. And Horne is looking more and more like a suspect.
* * *
DEATH OF A TENOR MAN is the second Evan Horne mystery. Synopsis: Evan Horne is playing piano at the Fashion Show Mall as he recovers from an injury to his right hand. His old friend Ace Buffington asks him to look for a few answers about the mysterious death of tenor sax player Wardell Gray. Horne doesn’t realize that asking a few questions about this decades old murder can bring a lot of heat, including a confrontation with a mobster.
* * *
The third book is THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET.
Synopsis: On a dark night in Pennsylvania, a jazz legend met his death. But now, in the heat and light of Las Vegas, the sound of Clifford Brown’s soaring trumpet is coming back to life. Because a man named Evan Horne, who knows all about jazz and pain, is unraveling a puzzle that reaches back forty years to Brown’s last hours–and that has already gotten one person killed.
Horne was called to Las Vegas to authenticate some recordings purported to be the lost tapes of Clifford Brown. But when a murder interrupts his listening session, Horne becomes the key player in a dangerous duet. Carrying a worn old trumpet that may have belonged to Clifford Brown himself, Horne is pursuing the truth behind an audiotape that may be worth a fortune, may be a hoax, and may be just one haunting melody in a killer’s murderous obsession…
* * *
BIRD LIVES! is the fourth Evan Horne mystery from Bill Moody.
Synopsis: For jazz pianist Evan Horne, things couldn’t be better: His hand has healed, he’s getting gigs at some of the southern California clubs, and he’s even been approached about a recording contract. He couldn’t have planned it any better. What he never considered, though, was that a murderer was going to add some startling improvisations…“The dead sax player was someone many in the traditional jazz community wouldn’t miss; he was, after all, just another Kenny G clone, someone capitalizing on an uneducated public’s willingness to support “smooth jazz” while the heirs to the tradition and music of Charlie Parker – “Bird” to the real fans – were starved for work.. “It is immediately clear to Horne that the murderer must have known that Parker was one of the greatest and most influential men to wet a reed. That’s the only reason the words “Bird Lives” were scrawled on the wall above the body, the same words that appeared on walls all over the world after Parker’s death…and that soon appear next to a second corpse. With a tie-in like that, it is no surprise that the cops turn to Evan; he’d helped them before when death stalked the music community. This time, though, helping could cost him his future…and his life.
Praise for Bill Moody’s Evan Horne mystery series
“Evan Horne is a smart, hip investigator of the human soul.” –Michael Connelly
“…entertaining…a breeze to read.” —Chicago Tribune
“For a lively trip into the…world of jazz musicians and murder, there’s no better guide than Bill Moody. Don’t miss DEATH OF A TENOR MAN.” –Tony Hillerman
“Bill Moody’s characters have life and soul.” —New York Times
“These pages sing…Moody mixes real-life jazz legends with his own characters in a solid mystery.” —Publishers Weekly
Bill is hard at work at the next book in the series, tentatively titled SAN QUENTIN BLUE.