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A review by fleeno
Low Action by Andrew Cartmel
1.0
The Vinyl Detective follows a young(ish) man who lives in London with his two cats and pays the bills by selling records online. It isn’t enough to pay for a new boiler but it lets him spend his time doing what he loves most: building up his record collection and listening to music that would otherwise be lost to the past.
Then a beautiful, mysterious woman turns up on his doorstep with an offer he cant refuse. She represents a wealthy client and wants to pay him an obscene amount of money to find a priceless lost recording: Easy Come, Easy Go by Easy Geary, on the Hathor label.
I, like many others, picked up this book based on the recommendation of Ben Aaronovitch and while there are some similarities in the style, The Vinyl Detective has none of the dry humour or engaging story that Aaronovitch's books have. I'm sure there are people who love music and will find the details of jazz and records interesting but by God I was bored. VD doesn't seem to care why anyone would pay a vast sum of money to find a record or why they're being followed or why anyone would kill over it, it's all just a series of things that happen. I was hoping this could be a new series but alas. I would rather stick knitting needles in my ears than read another sentence about jazz.
Then a beautiful, mysterious woman turns up on his doorstep with an offer he cant refuse. She represents a wealthy client and wants to pay him an obscene amount of money to find a priceless lost recording: Easy Come, Easy Go by Easy Geary, on the Hathor label.
I, like many others, picked up this book based on the recommendation of Ben Aaronovitch and while there are some similarities in the style, The Vinyl Detective has none of the dry humour or engaging story that Aaronovitch's books have. I'm sure there are people who love music and will find the details of jazz and records interesting but by God I was bored. VD doesn't seem to care why anyone would pay a vast sum of money to find a record or why they're being followed or why anyone would kill over it, it's all just a series of things that happen. I was hoping this could be a new series but alas. I would rather stick knitting needles in my ears than read another sentence about jazz.