Noise Floor (Vinyl Detective, 7)

Andrew Cartmel
Titan Books, 19 March 2024
Available as: PB, 376pp, audio, e   
Source: Purchased
ISBN(PB): 9781803367965

The Vinyl Detective is back!

I was afraid that, with the coming of The Paperback Sleuth, the Detective might take a bit of a rest but happily it's not so (though I want more of Cordelia's adventures too - and equally happily, I think another instalment is coming later this year).

This time, the nameless Detective and his pals are investigating the disappearance of Lambert Ramkin, a wealthy DJ and techno creator who was big in the 90s. Hired by Ramkin's wives (plural) to track him down, they soon realise that danger is stalking them... 

Does Ramkin want not to be found so much that he's threatening their lives? 

Or is that somebody else?

As with all of this series, much of the fun is simply the joy de vivre of the Detective, his girlfriend Nevada, their friend Clean Head and of course, Tinkler. I'm quite pleased that Tinkler's gradually moved from being just irritating to definitely loveable, if still irritating. The book is punctuated by their enjoyment of lunches, dinners, drinks and other substances and every mission to recover Ramkin includes details of hotels, trips to nice towns and plenty of gossip.

Those details really make this series come alive and are essential to a Vinyl Detective novel, and there are enough of them to satisfy although I felt that Cartmel had pared things back a bit compared to previous stories, both in the day tripping and in the plot. This is very much focussed on recovering Ramkin, rather than being a quest for rare vinyl which then takes an odd turn. There is a kind of side-plot involving creating a "Village of Vinyl" inspired by Hay on Wye, the original "town of books" but that doesn't feature much until the final part of the story. That made it easier to focus on the main issue - which for me counterpointed the lighter bits and made them more enjoyable.

At the same time we don't escape the dark side of things. Somebody seems to be riffing off The Magus, and there are decidedly weird events here including en entire time-slipped 90s rave, complete with police raid at the end. (If you've read Fowles's book you'll get the comparison). And, while most of the book is Stinky Stanmer-free, he isn't wholly missing and manages to do the dirty on our heroes as always. (Yes, I know, but you'd miss him if he never showed, wouldn't you?)

Stinky does though get his comeuppance in an action filled conclusion.

All in all a cracking instalment of this series and this should be high on your "To Read" list.

For more information about Noise Floor, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - Silverweed Road by Simon Crook

Silverweed Road

Simon Crook

HarperCollins, 29 September 2022

Available as: HB, 336pp, e, audio

Source: Advance e-copy

ISBN(HB): 9780008479930

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of Silverweed Road via NetGalley, to consider for review.

"All that is loved will be lost."

The addresses along Silverweed Road on the fictional Corvid Estate in Kent hide many secrets, many horrors. It's a place you probably wouldn't want to visit, still less move to. I'd imagine living there would be like experiencing, in real life, the entire run of Inside No 9, 

Loosely framed as blog entries written by ex DCI Jim Heath, an embittered man who lost his job because he was unable to explain or prevent the horrors described here, each story gives us much more detail and explanation than Heath was ever able to find. His conclusions and complaints, contrasted with the reality of the horrors described here, therefore have a slightly (if darkly) humorous effect.

It's a nice contrast, slightly relieving the awful things that happen to so many of the resident of Silverweed Road. Most of the stories (each named after a house number) are self-contained, though we see protagonists cross paths (and sometimes swords) before and after their own story so that through the book a clearer and clearer picture emerges of what is going on. However the exact reasons for it all, while hinted at in recurring motifs - such as the jackdaw - are teasingly vague until the last story, where there is an explanation of sorts.

The stories are varied in atmosphere and style, raging from the folk-horrific to outright gore-fests to creepy encounters with the supernatural force that inspires all that goes on here. The extent to which that supernatural visibly intrudes varies a lot, with a clear sense in some stories that the victim brings their fate on themselves (for example, Victor Hagman at no 31) while in others the innocent are ensnared (Shanta at no 10). Not all of the activity takes place on Silverweed Road - one protagonist here is the victim of a supernatural horror from far off, another meets a grisly fate far from Kent but it seems that the street then takes part in their revenge. Horror mixes with domestic strife and business or personal rivalries, the grim events in Silverweed Road sometimes reflecting wider themes of abuse and at others, taking a very particular local form.

There is humour, aside from Heath's increasingly exasperated (and mistaken) commentary, for example in one story where a darts enthusiast makes an unwise bargain to win a big tournament leading ultimately to tragedy (and one of Heath's most perplexing cases) but creating some hilarious moments on the way. Crook reaches into many different worlds for his stories, including a dodgy antiques dealer, a furious film craftsman upset that CGI has replaced his replica monsters and - perhaps most creepy of all - a scientist who chooses the Road as the ideal site for his sinister research into cuttlefish. 

If you do visit Silver weed Road, be aware that there are traps here, ancient and malign forces preying on the unwary. There are ancient secrets in the woods about, and the night is not friendly. You won't come here and leave without being altered, compromised, changed. 

Still interested in that affordably priced semi...?

Overall, an excellent collection of interlinked stories, which is really much more than the sum of its parts.

For more information on the book, see the publisher's website here.

Review - Victory Disc by Andrew Cartmel

Cover design by Martin Stiff

Victory Disc (Vinyl Detective, 3)
Andrew Cartmel
Titan Books, 8 May 2018
PB, 432pp

I'm grateful to Titan for an advance copy of this book.

This is the 3rd in the series featuring the (unnamed) Vinyl Detective, his girlfriend Nevada, annoying best friend Tinkler, getaway driver Clean Head and, of course, cats Turk and Fanny. The setup is well established - the Vinyl Collector hunts down old records, and his commissions typically involve him in a historical mystery, which has enough echoes in the present to threaten considerable danger.

Victory Disc is no exception, but takes the gang out of their comfort zone (if being threatened, drugged, burgled or kidnapped can be so described) as the hunt is for even older and rarer records than before - specifically for wartime recordings of the RAF's Flare Path Orchestra, a band of serving airmen purportedly set up to compete with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The Flare Path Orchestra wasn't, of course, real, the Miller band (of course) was. Yet Cartmel has an amazing knack for describing  (totally fictitious) music so convincingly that you're almost there, listening to it. Very evocative, as is the name Flare Path Orchestra itself which made me think of Terrance Rattigan's play Flare Path, also set against the background of bomber crews in the Second World War.

Of course there's a mystery to be unravelled here, the murder of a young woman, Gillian Gadon, during the war, for which a young RAF officer was hanged. (I strongly approved of the fact that in this story Nevada insists on using Gadon's name, making her more than simply an object of male violence). This backstory intertwines with a commission, in the present, by the wealthy Miss Honeyland, to hunt down any serviving records by the Orchestra whose leader was her father, "Lucky" Lucian Honeyland. (One slight gripe: Honeyland's is described as "Colonel" - not an RAF rank, I think). That sets The Vinyl Detective (or the Shellac Shamus, as Nevada describes him now that he's delving into the age of 78s) tracking down surviving members of the band, widening his knowledge of the wartime bombing campaign (at the heart of the book there is, among other things, a compassionate argument about the cruelty of that campaign and its effect both on German cities and on the aircrew themselves).

This is Cartmel at his best, sending the team off on a series of rackety day trips to obscure corners of Kent, portraying the foibles and varied lives of the surviving band/ squadron members while throwing in an eclectic gallery of record eccentric collectors, menacing thugs, murder historians and, inevitably, more cats (poor Abner...) It all moves pretty briskly and - another thing I like in these books - the crew behave intelligently, understanding (from previous adventures) that there may be danger out there. Not that this makes the book staid or boring - it has a pretty scary climax and the revelations that follow complete a satisfying story, bringing the crimes of the past right into the present and showing how evil persists. Indeed there is something of a sense of urgency to the story and a demand to question appearances and remain vigilant. Another strong theme is erasure, particularly of artists (that's a vein consistently explored in all these books).

In all this was an exciting and atmospheric mystery and a good addition to the Vinyl Detective's casebook. I note that a further instalment, Flip Back, is due in 2019 and I wish the anonymous record-finder and his partner plenty of good, fresh coffee and decent food in their next outing.

Final note: while Cartmel avoids using the Collector's name - how long can he keep that up? - he does use pronouns, so I'm not just falling into a lazy assumption that the character is male!

For more about the book see the publisher's website here.