Gal, a middle-aged musician, is back in Boston to play a memorial for her late drummer/best friend, when she finds herself freezing on stage at the sight of a face in the crowd. The next day, she learns that the man she saw has been killed - beaten to death behind the venue - and her friend's widower is being charged in connection with his death. When the friend refuses to defend himself, Gal wonders why and, as the memories of begin to flood back, she starts her own informal investigation.
Clea Simon knows how to capture the texture of the rock club — its heat, sex, power, energy, and danger, too. [A] propulsive new thriller ... In electric prose, Simon conjures the rock-and-roll world, its drink, drugs, and band-dynamics, and the twin seductresses of excess and success, as she makes a penetrating portrait of friendship. She writes of what it is to look back on the past, with nostalgia, grief, longing, regret, and the ongoing process of losing control, and getting it back.
Simon draws on her career as a journalist, in particular her reporting on Boston’s music scene in the 1990s, for the setting, concert scenes, and flashbacks, bringing a gritty reality to this dark suspense tale.
