Dead Girl Walking

March 16, 2015
In Brookmyre's entertaining though at times implausible sixth crime novel featuring wily Edinburgh newshound Jack Parlabane (after 2007's Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks), Jack agrees to do a favor for an old friend, Mairi Lafferty, the manager of one of the hottest music acts in Scotland, Savage Earth Heart. Mairi asks Jack to track down the group's lead singer, Heike Gunn, who disappeared after the band's eventful European tour. Chapters alternate between Jack's hunt for Heike and the private blog of Savage Earth Heart's new member, shy violinist Monica Halcrow, who falls under Heike's charismatic spell. Monica's predictable evolution from buttoned-up Shetland girl to wild rock star is less interesting than Jack's descent into the rabbit hole of secrets related to the music world and later to a vast European criminal network. A few connections in this web of deceit are a bit too convenient, but Brookmyre creates fascinating characters and expertly places them in darkly humorous yet disturbing situations. Agent: Caroline Dawnay, United Agents (U.K.).

March 1, 2015
A disgraced journalist and a young violinist seek a charismatic rock star in parallel quests.Jack Parlabane's two-decade career as an investigative reporter, first in his native Scotland and then on the international scene, has always relied on a certain improvisational approach to obtaining information. But when he went too far, he lost everything, even though he stuck to his principles and didn't name his source. Now he's washed up, divorced, childless, lonely, and wary of an offer from Mairi Lafferty, the younger sister of one of his best friends. She's on the rise as the manager of the rock band Savage Earth Heart, whose leader, Heike Gunn, has gone missing. Monica Halcrow also learns the art of improvisation when she joins Heike's band as the fiddle player and starts to break free of her classical training. She becomes preoccupied with understanding the manipulative, controlling Heike, who, like her, grew up on a remote island off the Scottish coast. On the band's European tour, Monica ventures even further into new territory and comes to suspect, as Parlabane does in following the band's trail, that what seems like a simple merchandising ploy is actually a front for something more sinister. When Parlabane can no longer avoid the possibility that Heike may have been killed for information she shouldn't have had, he also confronts uncomfortable truths about his own life. But a subtle twist in Monica's account of the band's tour leads Parlabane to a shocking discovery and a slender hope. A complex back story and some awkward attempts to convey the magic of the lost singer's music make for a slow start. But Brookmyre (Bred in the Bone, 2104, etc.) builds momentum and combines the two distinct narrative voices in a clever duet.

Starred review from April 1, 2015

When Heike Gunn, the lead singer for an up-and-coming band vanishes, the group's manager hires his old friend, scorned and disillusioned journalist Jack Parlabane, to investigate her disappearance. Jack senses the band members are lying to him. In particular, newest hire Monica Halcrow, whose lesbian relationship with Heike sparked a public obsession, has the most to hide. Simultaneously, the British police are investigating Jack's involvement with the leaking of official files from a politician's laptop. In following leads related to Heike's disappearance, Jack travels from Berlin to Barcelona and then to the Shetland Islands to uncover a hidden network of sex trafficking. VERDICT In the latest entry of this series about Jack Parlabane (after Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks) Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award winner Brookmyre's (Sharp-Mcleod series) intricate plot is tightly woven and transitions from multiple characters' perspectives seamlessly. Fans of Ian Rankin's John Rebus crime novels and Henning Mankell's Wallander books will enjoy the strong male protagonist. Readers already invested in Jack and his exploits will enjoy this chilly thriller, which also can serve as a stand-alone for newcomers. A caveat: American audiences will find the Scottish slang challenging.--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2015
Heike Gunn's music career is soaring when her band, Savage Earth Heart, returns from a successful European tour, so her disappearance just weeks before their American tour is mystifying. The band's manager, Mairi Lafferty, knows there is no way that Heike, a classic control freak, would blow off micromanaging plans for the tour. She asks Jack Parlabane, a rogue journalist whose career is in tatters after a national scandal exposed his dubious investigative methods, to discreetly investigate Heike's disappearance. Jack quickly learns that talented, high-strung Heike cultivated plenty of dangerous enemies on the European tour, and he's certain that Heike's band and crew know much more than they claim. Brookmyre (Flesh Wounds, 2014) serves up a tantalizing mix of possibilities for Heike's disappearance: romantic vengeance, shady rock politics, jealousy, and Heike's tangling with a ruthless human-trafficking gang. Readers will be pleased to find that Jack's dubious methods make fantastic thriller fare, and skilled plotting keeps the key to Heike's disappearance elusive until the final moments.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)