Music and Murder

Oak Park Village Mystery #2

by Jeanne M. Dams

Spirited female sleuth Elizabeth Fairchild is drawn into Chicago's growing jazz scene - and murder - in this compelling 1920s mystery.

July, 1926. When Elizabeth Fairchild's beau, Fred Wilkins, suggests going to Chicago's Sunset Club to see Louis Armstrong, the world's best trumpeter, in action, she faces a dilemma. The burgeoning jazz scene in the city is proving to be controversial, associated with gangsters and scandal. Even her dear friend Susannah refers to jazz as 'the devil's music'.

Intrigued, Elizabeth brushes her fears aside and visits the club with Fred, but an explosion causes panic - the Ku Klux Klan are intent on blowing up the club as part of a race war being waged in the city, and murder soon follows. Elizabeth has made herself a target, but she has a plan to save the club. The only problem is it involves jazz afficionado and the Sunset Club's owner, the country's most notorious criminal, Al Capone . . .

Genres: Mystery

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2023

About the author

Jeanne M. Dams lives in South Bend, Indiana. The Body in the Transept, which introduced Dorothy Martin, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Dams is also the author of Green Grow the Victims and other Hilda Johansson mysteries published by Walker & Company.

Reviews

[Daria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second in the Oak Park village mystery series featuring Elizabeth Fairchild as protagonist and female sleuth in 1920s Chicago, complete with jazz, illegal booze, gangs, and the Ku Klux Klan. Elizabeth is helped in solving a mystery by friends, family, and the man who loves her and hopes to convince her to marry.

I have very mixed feelings about this series. I enjoy the settings, the characters, and the author's clear interest in the history, culture, and social habits of the period. The scene in the jazz club was fascinating to read. But Elizabeth gets into situations that just seem unbelievable for a woman of her era and social class and slightly ridiculous (her friendly chats with mobsters, for example, or trying to set two gangs against each other to solve a murder, or winning over the KKK with cookies). Three stars for the interesting backdrop.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the ARC.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Elizabeth and loved this mystery that mixes historical and fictional characters. There's a lot going on and the plot is action packed and fast paced.
A good and solid historical mystery. The background is vivid and well researched and I was glad to catch with Elizabeth and Fred
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m so glad this new Jeanne M. Dams series is continuing! Great second read

[Delores Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Fairchild is back to being an amateur detective. Since the death of her husband in WWII she has lacked interest in many things. Her friend Fred invited her to a Jazz Club to listen to Louis Armstrong and she became engrossed in it. She learns that Al Capone was also interested in Jazz. Soon her, Fred and His Aunt Lucy begin a conspiracy to prevent Capone’s printing of counterfeit money. In the process both Elizabeth and Lucy get kidnapped and they all chase Capone to French Lick, Indiana.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I’m a huge fan of Jeanne M. Dams’ Dorothy Martin series, and while I liked the first book in this series, I don’t think the second is as good. I’m not a fan of Elizabeth Fairchild Wilkins, and I find some of the conversations too preachy, and the plot too unrealistic. I like the fact that it takes place in Illinois during a time of historical interest for me, but that’s as far as it goes for me. I had to struggle through this one at times. Hoping for better if the author continues the series.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every now and then, I enjoy an undemanding mystery and Music and Murder fits the bill. I selected this novel by an unfamiliar author, because my mother was born and raised in Oak Park, Ill in the 1920s. This and the first book of the series are set in that time and place, though my mother would have been a toddler in 1925. tIn fact, Dams does evoke the era and aspects of the "Village." I certainly know that during prohibition, my chemist grandfather made booze for home consumption in the basement.

It is 1925. Elizabeth, a thirty year old war widow, and her boyfriend Fred, a local lawyer, sneak out to a speakeasy to see Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong play. Jazz is the devil's music and the properly raised and rather proper Elizabeth finds she loves the music. The "mystery" in the novel involves things happening in Oak Park around some criminal activities of some local branches of Chicago area gangs. It is the time of Al Capone, who Elizabeth has met in a priorr interaction. Apparently, Oak Park had an active Klan at the time that focussed in part on its antipathy toward Jazz, a decidedly Black genre of music.

I have to admit to being a bit put off by Elizabeth's perceived relationships with her parents' Black servants. "They're just like family." Elizabeth has glimmers of recognition of their respective life situations, but it's still ick. I know enough about Oak Park to know my mother's family would not have been able to buy a house there when they did, because they were Jewish. My grandparents passed right in as part of the social scene, political scene, etc. No one knew, including Mom, that they were Jewish. Dam's portrait of the Klan that does not even mention the antisemitism of that group was weird. Each group was neatly separated, so that the good white folk all kind of disliked the more middle class Protestant white Klan members and the gang members are hanging out in a Frank Lloyd Wright house doing something inappropriate but nothing to see there. as far as neighbors and the police are concerned. Everyone lives in a bubble, with Elizabeth and her crew popping from bubble to bubble to solve the mysteries.

Overall, I found liked reading this novel, including pretending Al Capone would interact with a young woman from Oak Park. What I realized after finishing it was that the whole thing reads like a Nancy Drew book for adults. I liked Nancy Drew and I enjoyed this grownup version.

[Catherine Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

What is the likelihood that an insipid, cry-baby would attempt to boss either Al Capone or the Ku Klux Clan, let alone get away with it? I'd give the chance a big zero, which is almost how I rate this book. My one-star rating is generous. I found the preaching of 21st century ideas on racial equality a rather strange bit of revisionist history in this book set in 1926, especially since the protagonist has "colored" servants whom she frequently speaks to as if they were children, regularly giving them verbal pats on the head. I thought the character of Aunt Lucy was the only sensible and reasonably developed persona in the book, although it wasn't quite clear if she was elderly or merely middle-aged. This series is definitely not the same caliber as Dam's Dorothy Martin series.

[Sianne Wardle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth is an independent women who has suffered terrible loss. She learns how to break those walls down and how to deal with a controlling mother. She finds her self in the middle of a gang war, with many twists and turns until the mysteries are solved, with only a couple of people she can reach out to for help and support. Was the house she fell in love with worth it? This book is set in the early days of jazz music, and incorporated views of the music at the time very well. You get to know the characters very well and the storyline is very gripping. Although theirs is romance themes throughout there is so much more to this book. I highly recommend reading this story.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth, a young widow, finds herself caught up in a mess when she goes to a jazz club with her romantic interest Fred - and the Ku Klux Klan shows up. It's 1926 and she's at the epicenter of gangsters and racists and she inserts herself. That Al Capone owns the club only heightens the atmospherics. That said, this is an unlikely scenario and it overwhelms the mystery. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I like Elizabeth and hope to see a less ambitious outing next time.

[Chandhrika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spoiler - did not finish it. Aside from the backdrop of 1920s Chicago and the jazz scene, nothing else in this book seemed remotely believable. Especially unbelievable was the repeated glossing over of upper class white families chummily interacting and embracing their black servants. What a load of revisionist history!

[Scilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fred convinces Elizabeth to go to a jazz concert at the Sunset Cafe in Chicago. Jazz is not considered to be a respectable thing to listen to, and the Sunset is a speakeasy run by gangsters. Much to her surprise, Elizabeth enjoys the concert even though they have to leave fast when they hear an explosion. When Elizabeth hears that the Ku Klux Klan is planning to destroy the Sunset Cafe, she meets Al Capone in a church to tell him to get the Chicago Police to protect the club.

Elizabeth decides she wants to move out of her family house to be more independent. She asks Lucy, Fred's aunt, to help her find an apartment. After finding out that she might not be able to bring her cats or have a black housekeeper, she decides she'd rather buy her own house. The only problem is that the house she she really wants belongs to gangsters, and they will not sell it to her. Then, Elizabeth is abducted and driven away in a car with a bag over her head! She manages to get away, and a policeman finds her. Elizabeth is taken back to Lucy's house, and she agrees to marry Fred.

Elizabeth and Fred get married and then go north to a cottage owned by Elizabeth to get away from the gangsters. When it begins to rain hard, they get out and go to a hotel in Indiana. Elizabeth has decided to put on a charity jazz concert to stop the battles between the gangsters and the Klu Klux Klan and needs to meet Al Capone again to arrange it.

I thank Netgalley and Random House/Ballantine for an ARC.

[Tanya Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

G

[Louise Hartin · Rating 5 out of 5]

intriguing

Full of mystery, suspense and intrigue. Un-put down-able. Wonderful characters. Ms Dams certainly knows how to keep a reader on ‘tenterhooks’.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

A library find.
December 2023.
A well written intriguing book.
It presented well round, interesting characters.
The plot was well thought out.
Enjoyable read.