The bright lights and glamour of Nashville can be a heady
experience, and this hold especially true for Cindy
Blaskowitz, an aspiring singer/songwriter from Cabot Cove,
Maine. The young girl has been sent to Music City through a
scholarship program by the good people of Cabot Cove to
explore a career in music.
But her luck turns bad when Cindy, now known as Cyndi
Gabriel, is deceived by Roderick Marker, a conniving music
publisher who promised her the moon. And when Marker is
found murdered in his office, and the murder weapon was a
trophy with Cindy's fingerprints all over it, she becomes a
star in a way she never wanted -- as the prime suspect in a
murder investigation.
As a member of the committee who sent Cindy to Nashville,
Jessica Fletcher feels responsible for seeing that Cindy
gets the help she needs, especially when Cindy's mother
begs her to help her daughter. So Jessica heads to the home
of country music and soon discovers that in addition to the
lights, sounds and creativity, the city harbors a great
deal of cheating, lying and swindling -- sounds like a
country song to me!
In the thirty-third installment of the popular MURDER SHE
WROTE series, NASHVILLE NOIR is a lively look at the
amazing amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in a setting
outside her normal residence in Maine. Author Donald Bain
once again creates a fast-paced, well-written mystery that
fans of the genre will adore. Bain adeptly captures the
flavor of present-day Nashville (well, Nashville before the
big flood!) and the country music industry of today.
Country music isn't all wine and roses, it's a tough
business and Bain brought that reality to his story.
Jessica Fletcher knows that creativity must be nurtured. So when a young lady from Cabot Cove shows promise as a singer and songwriter, Jessica and a local citizens committee send Cyndi on a scholarship trip to Nashville, Tennessee, where she can benefit from professional instruction. Only weeks later, Cabot Cove is shocked to hear of the cold-blooded murder of a brash country music publisher-by the young talent Cyndi! And as Cyndi's mother begs Jessica to help her daughter, Jess heads to the country music capital of the world to help the wayward starlet. Jessica finds that the murdered man was no country gentleman, with a list of ex-wives, cheated partners, swindled singers, and stolen songs that has Jessica swinging to-and-fro in the search for a killer. And if she can't uncover the culprit soon, Jessica knows that poor Cyndi will never get the chance for an encore...