His
business card states that he is the vinyl detective, a hunter
down of rare vinyl records. So perhaps it is not surprising
when a woman comes to his seedy estate and asks him to locate
an extremely rare one for her client. The woman is beautiful,
the sum of money promised large, the recording perhaps the
rarest jazz record of them all - how can he refuse? But soon
he is going to discover that there is more to the world of
record collecting than he could possibly imagine, and a lot
of it is very dangerous!
This is a large book of nearly 500 pages and could stand some
editing, but there is a fair bit in here to enjoy. The book
lifts the lid on a nerdy subculture of collectors, and it
does help if you are interested in the subject matter and
preferably know something about it. Other than that, think
noir and a latter day Sam Spade in a modern world of seedy
housing and charity shops with updated beautiful women and
deadly foes. There are quite a few characters and we do get
to know all of them fairly well, along with a healthy dose
of comedy and a keen sense for the bizarre in even the most
ordinary situations. The author has written SF before, and
although this is not that type of thing, it is not hard to
imagine. Although there is no actual world building in here,
Mr. Cartmel’s depiction of the arcane world of record
collecting has the feel of an alien culture laid bare for
the reader to wonder at. Surprisingly pacy given its length,
this is an imaginative start to a new series.
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