Death of a Cave Dweller

When Eddie Barnes is electrocuted on the stage of the Cellar Club, in front of three hundred adoring fans, the Liverpool Police immediately call in Scotland Yard, which - in effect - means calling in the Yard's resident expert on 'Up North', Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend. But for once, Woodend feels out of his depth. For a start, he doesn't understand what makes young musicians tick. He can't see why Eddie's mother says that Eddie had a girlfriend, while his best mate, Steve Walker, insists that he didn't. And who has been playing nasty tricks on Eddie's group, the Seagulls, culminating in Eddie finding a dead rat - with a noose round its neck - in his guitar case?

Was Eddie murdered because he was Eddie, or because he was one of the Seagulls. As Woodend battles with the complexities of the case - and with the less-than-affable local police - he is more than aware that if he does not find the murderer soon, there could well be another death.

From Booklist:

In the early 1960s, just as his band is becoming famous, lead guitarist Eddie Barnes is electrocuted on stage at a Liverpool club. The Liverpool police drop this baffling crime on Scotland Yard, where it lands in the laps of quirky chief inspector Charlie Woodend and level-headed sergeant Bob Rutter. Faced with finding the shadowy killer amid the frenetic Liverpool rock scene, Woodend and Rutter find themselves in a race against the clock. Although Spencer is relatively unheralded among authors of British police procedurals, she deserves a much wider audience. Her characters are diverse, intriguing, and believable; her plots never fail to surprise; and the procedural details are grittily realistic. Spencer's gift for incorporating historic detail in her crime dramas - in this case, Liverpool and English urban life before the Beatles - is reminiscent of the way Max Allan Collins uses Chicago in his Nate Heller mysteries. Recommend Spencer confidently to anyone who enjoys the British procedural.
John Rowen. Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.

Order Death of a Cave Dweller (hardback) from Amazon.co.uk

Order Death of a Cave Dweller (hardcover) from Amazon.com

We would both welcome any comments, suggestions or criticisms on anything you have read of ours, or on our web site. We can be contacted at: sally@sallyspencer.com