June 1926, New York City
Records are the wave of the future, and jazz singer Lizzie Crane intends to use this new medium to gain fame and fortune in the music world. When Jim Jenkins, owner of Jupiter Records and a close family friend of Lizzie's saxophonist, invites her and her bandmates to make a record with his company, it seems like a dream come true. But before they can sign a contract, Jenkins dies from an overdose of mercury bichloride, a drug used to treat syphilis.
As Lizzie begins looking into the record producer's surprising death, she suspects it may not have been an accident. Jenkins cheated some of the artists who recorded with him and made enemies with other people in the music business, including the head of New York's top radio station KDAZ. Furthermore, rumors suggest Jenkins had a secret paramour, and his jealous wife might have poisoned him.
When Lizzie starts getting threatening letters, and someone breaks into her apartment, her quest for the truth becomes increasingly personal--and dangerous. The deeper she delves into the mystery, the more she realizes she can't trust anyone, not even her friends.
Autorentext
Skye Alexander is the author of more than fifty fiction and nonfiction books, including four previous novels in the Lizzie Crane mystery series: Never Try to Catch a Falling Knife, What the Walls Know, The Goddess of Shipwrecked Sailors, and Running in the Shadows. Her stories have been published in anthologies internationally, and her work has been translated into fifteen languages. With fellow mystery writers Kate Flora and Susan Oleksiw, she cofounded Level Best Books in 2003. After living in Massachusetts for thirty-one years, she now makes her home in Texas.