Honky-Tonk Girl

Honky-Tonk Street—a dark, lonely, sordid edge of town where doom and despair reign supreme—a place where Johnny Nickles and the members of his jazz band are playing hot sets in seedy clubs among the whores, winos, and grifters who make up the denizens of the district.But a killer is stalking Johnny and his band, and Johnny finds himself trapped in a deadly game of chicken with local power broker Sam Cowles, his corrupt lackey Sheriff Botello, and a deadly professional thug for hire. What's worse, the group's mysterious Ghost Album, which memorializes and recreates classic jazz songs by long-dead masters of the art, has become almost a curse to the performers.This is a haunting, forgotten classic of the noir crime novel. We can feel the world closing in on Johnny Nickles; we can almost hear the moody jazz riffs and cool music background tightening around his neck. Beckman's text beats a worthy accompaniment to the harsh tempo of Johnny's downward spiral. In...