[JPL] A Zen-Jazz Mystery Novel by Skoot Larson

[Michelle Mobley]

"The No News is Bad News Blues" 
(A Zen-Jazz Mystery Novel by Skoot Larson)
Author House 2007

Reviewed by Michelle Mobley

Drawing on a potential (albeit inevitable) terrorist attack on the Port of Los
Angeles, San Pedro native Skoot Larson has spun a good yarn of the events
leading up to the day that the container holding the dirty bomb floats through
the harbor and up to the Vincent Thomas Bridge. 

In his debut mystery novel, Larson has taken from his own experiences in the
harbor town he has called home for the past decade and before (his Norwegian
father and Croatian/Italian mother met and married in WWII San Pedro).   

In the persona of jazz musician Lars Lindstrom, the author takes us on a tour
of this port town – as well as a visit to the port city of Oslo, Norway –
 as he
chases answers to why the body of a member of Al-Kaida ended up on the patio of
his "penthouse" abode situated on the rooftop of a flop-house hotel...and
subsequently, the body vanishes before the cops get there. 

A street level storefront of his "residential hotel" is a popular, however
dubious dive.  Between gigs as the trumpet-playing leader of a jazz ensemble at
the dive, Lars deals with the mixed egos of L.A.'s Finest, the Feds and the
local fuzz of Oslo.  To inject a bit of romance to this page turner, while in
Norway, the jazzman falls hard for a red-headed beauty on a streetcar.  But
that doesn't get in the way of his ambition to solve the mystery of the dead
Arab, and the subsequent demise of a few key players.  
  
With that, I'll leave it to you to wonder who the author kills next, just as
Lars surmises:  

"Paranoia is the Hipster's disease. . .the eyeball disease. . .like who's
that?...what's that?...who's out there?...what's that car?...who's in that
car?...why's that car there?...that car wasn't there before.  Once you let your
head get a bite of this bitter fruit, you’ve lost control of your cool, like
forever and an eight-bar coda."
  
In addition to this spell-binding story, Larson provides a Hipster's Glossary
to help you with that odd language that jazz musicians and all hep cats and
kittens need to "make the scene," and to understand some of the "hip-speak" in
this book.



  Michelle Mobley 
  310-833-0947 
  michelle_mobley at sbcglobal.net