The Devil's Red Nickel

The music spelled freedom for a young black man in the early 1960s: the doo-wop singers and dance rhythms that sailed west on a powerful A.M. radio signal from Chicago. CJ Floyd is not as young or carefree as he once was. But a certain wisdom has come with the years, and cruising in his '57 Bel Air, CJ can still get off on the doo-wop sound - until it comes to him with a backbeat of murder. For CJ, the case begins when a beautiful black woman hires him to look into the death of her father, one LeRoy Polk, a.k.a. Daddy Doo-Wop, a famous Chicago D.J. Sleek, smart, and hard-driving Clothilde Polk is sure her father did not die of the heart attack doctors first suspected. CJ agrees to investigate. Before long, he realizes that the death of Daddy Doo-Wop is part of a bigger story, one that reaches back to Chicago in the fifties when the Mob called the tune. From payola to paybacks, from the dirtiest of deals to some old tapes that still might be worth gold, CJ is entering into a realm where a great melody can lead to a deadly refrain, and where someone has a murderous hit parade of his own.


Genre: Mystery