Rock Music, Suspense, Dark Thriller: HOLD ME DOWN by Clea Simon

Clea Simon's deep dives into the crime, pain, and heroics of Boston's club music world gave a fierce and dark passion to her crime novel World Enough (2017). With HOLD ME  DOWN, Simon goes multiple layers deeper and darker—thanks to the persona of Gal, a scarred and angry woman who has held crowds in the palm of her hand as she belted out the lyrics of her own top songs, mic stand and the strings of the bass as much a part of her as her own vocal cords and rough screams of rage and sexuality.

For Gal, a Boston return, 20 years later, is fraught with potential failure. Taking a cameo role in a club performance, she falters at first, realizing the guitarist is "all metal and speed, still" -- can Gal keep up? But she finds out right away: "The move centers her ... belting out the chorus as well as she knows the tattoo on her wrist—an F clef, faded blue—as the song pours out of her, the words coming easily now. Winding up to the hook. The line with the hiccup. One extra beat that makes the rhyme different." And she's back in charge of the image she's been ready to project, of a woman and a band grown tougher with age, "blooded, in ways they can only imagine." It's about power, sexuality, control.

And then, with one tricky glimpse for a moment of a face in the crowd, she's rubbed raw again, and in danger.

Scenes of touring, of the drug-supported physical challenge of performing for one crowd after another, clawing up the charts, the band becoming a life form of its own: Simon peels these like layers of a sharp onion, tears and rage starting to flow with Gal's slow recognition of the deep punishment she's sustained in her life. Her best songs—including the iconic "Hold Me Down"—root in that festering pain and anger that only her closest friends have even a hint of. 

"That song, 'Hold Me Down,' had been their breakout. Their hit, even in the rough four-track version they'd recorded down at Randy's, burning up the college stations with a waiting list for the single. Fans asking at the record store whenever she dropped back in to pick up a shift. It was why the suits had come calling, taking the shuttle up from New York to hear them at the Rat, the Channel, Taji's."

With the "suits" had come the controllers, the people who shoved the band at a pace beyond human capacity, drugging them as needed, pressing them into alcohol and drug abuse and a demand for performance that's deadly in its effects.

As the 20-years-later brutal murder of one of the team confronts her, so long after the band's success, Gal slowly admits to herself why the killing happened and who has deliberately done damage to her and the others. Then the police get involved, demanding that she reveal information she's barely coming to terms with. "You could come in and speak with us, if you'd like. Or should I send someone to get you?" That's the investigator. And Gal replies that she'll come in, without being dragged—admitting, in that moment, that her choices are "all about control."

But you can't control what brutal crime does to you. You can only cling to your friends and what's left of who you thought you were, and keep going. Or not. 

Simon's pacing in this crime thriller offers more than plot and character: She reincarnates the demanding sexuality of the rock underground with the costs of fame and addiction. Page by page, scene by traumatic scene, there's no guarantee that Gal can even perceive a safe harbor. 

Anyone who's dreamed of the power of being a rock performer will get double the emotional kick from this raw and compelling suspense novel. Simon's particular genius in HOLD ME DOWN is shining her light into the world of tough, struggling, and brilliant women—a side of the rock world rarely acknowledged or envisioned. HOLD ME DOWN is a heartache packed into 248 pages, with the possibility of breaking always just within reach.

After multiple genres of mysteries and crime novels, this Boston-area author has come into her own, so that Gal yells the words so many have had in the back of their throats, an accusation: "You wanna, you wanna hold me down." It's all about how we fight back. Can Gal do it—and survive?

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Love, Death, and Friends Forever, in FRIENDS & OTHER LIARS, by Kaela Coble

Highly engrossing, engaging, and unpredictable -- that's this winter's debut novel from Vermont author Kaela Coble, FRIENDS & OTHER LIARS. But is it a mystery? I'm not sure. It's certainly not a murder mystery; the only death in the book has already taken place before the action starts, and is clearly suicide. Yet some of the classic elements of a finely plotted mystery are very much present: red herrings, costly actions, mixed motives that need unearthing.

Moreover, the pacing is tight, the characters compelling, and ... I couldn't put it down.

Here's the setup: Ruby's visiting her home town (actually by Vermont standards, it's a small city) because of the death -- by suicide -- of one of her friends from the very tight group she survived high school with. But it's not a simple wake: The dead friend, Danny, quit the scene with a bundle of resentments against his friends, intense and painful and even cruel. And he's left his mom (who is hosting the wake) with a letter to read to the group:

You always talked about "the crew, the crew, the crew," like we were some untouchable entity. But when it comes to things that really matter, you guys barely knew each other. I think it's about time you did, if you're going to continue to pride yourselves on being friends since the womb. I know things about most of you that you didn't trust the crew to know.

In addition to this opening, Danny's left a letter for each of his four close friends, including Ruby and the man she's never quite coupled off with, Murphy. Each note reveals a secret that the person is deeply ashamed of. And he expect them to share these? Umm, the timing's not great. Plus there's a note he addressed to himself, which says simply, "I killed my stepfather."

It happens that Ruby already knows something about Danny's own "secret." But revealing that now, so many years after the fact, is going to complicate everything she's tried to put together in her life.

The book's chapters alternate time periods between the middle school and high school years and "now," and the critical question becomes, how is Danny, from the grave, orchestrating the threats of revelation among his former friends? And how will Ruby sustain the effects of her own secret being revealed?

This is a debut novel, but has few clues to that -- because the writing is smooth, clever, and expert. I'm curious to see what direction this author's next work will take.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

If You're Missing Father Brown, Check out THE DAY OF THE LIE from William Brodrick

American readers may not have crossed paths with British author William Brodrick before this -- but Overlook Press is bringing out the fourth in his Father Anselm series at the end of this month (March 28), with more of the series to come. And that's a great treat for those of us who cut our mystery teeth on G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories -- as well as for readers intrigued by the frictions of Europe's small nations and large conflicts.

THE DAY OF THE LIE takes Father Anselm out of his monastic retreat, to assist an old friend in danger -- spiritual more than physical, it seems. At least, Father Anselm's Prior already seems to know more than Anselm about John Fielding's troubles and guilt. And for much of the book, that's the very human strand that will keep Anselm pursuing the truths of a dangerous time in Eastern Europe, and the path of a woman named Roza, who'd been a revolutionary all her life. In fact, it's Roza's reappearance in John Fielding's life that pulls the old friend to Anselm's door, with a desperate request: "I need a lawyer."

That makes more sense than you might realize if you didn't already know that Anselm had abandoned a career at the bar to become a monastic priest. Anselm's the one that John needs -- but at first the priest is sure his Prior will say no to the request. After all, you join a monastery in order to stay within its walls, right? But the Prior is prepared -- and ready to warn Anselm about this sleuthing action he's about to tackle:

"I want you to be vigilant, Anselm," began the Prior, watching where he was putting his feet. Branches had fallen during the recent bout of high winds. ... "I don't wish to offend you, but regardless of your many years in the criminal courts, you have no experience of the place to which you are going and the dangers it holds. Nor is it a prison cell where you're protected by that strange respect which even the most violent men hold for representatives of the law ... You'll be entering the world of Otto Brack, this frightening man who learned how to bring about evil by exploiting someone who is good, laying -- in part -- the evil at their door. I have never come across that before. You must take special precautions."

Anselm was unnerved by the Prior's declamatory tone. It was reserved for funerals. He was surprised, too, but the warning. The plan was to fly to Warsaw, open a file, have a quick read, eat some pickled cucumber, drink himself senseless, and then come home. The chances of mishap were remote. He said so.

Of course, Anselm's error of misjudging the danger comes from a lack of information, and it seems very unfair that the Prior won't or can't share what's already been exposed by John Fielding. But there it is, and soon Father Anselm is on his way to a land drenched in the tragedies of centuries of violence and injustice. And yes, evil. With strange roots, though.

Brodrick's writing has won much acclaim, especially for the first in this series, The Sixth Lamentation. He has his own experience as both an Augustinian friar-in-training and barrister to draw on. And he has a complex and intriguing tale to tell, saturated with violence and regrets.

Patience is required for THE DAY OF THE LIE, though, as some of the narrative is jerky, and references to characters sometimes aren't clear. Jumps in time and place add to the dislocation. Still, the compelling story makes it worth putting up with the book's flawed movement, and the pace is rapid and intense, with characters worth caring about. I'll be looking for the others in the series -- and hope Overlook will quickly make them available.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.