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Sam McCain #1
The Day the Music Died
Sam McCain, an impoverished young lawyer in 1950s Iowa, is summoned from his grief over the death of Buddy Holly to investigate an uxoricide
210 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
47 people are currently reading
305 people want to read
About the author
Ed Gorman
468 books122 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Edward Joseph Gorman Jr. was a prolific American author and anthologist, widely recognized for his contributions to crime, mystery, western, and horror fiction. Born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Gorman spent much of his life in the Midwest, drawing on that experience to set many of his novels in small towns. After working over two decades in advertising, political speechwriting, and industrial filmmaking, he published his first novel, Rough Cut, in 1984 and soon transitioned to full-time writing. His fiction is often praised for its emotional depth, suspenseful storytelling, and nuanced characters. Gorman wrote under the pseudonyms Daniel Ransom and Robert David Chase, and contributed to publications such as Mystery Scene, Cemetery Dance, and Black Lizard. He co-founded Mystery Scene magazine and served as its editor and publisher until 2002, continuing his “Gormania” column thereafter. His works have been adapted for film and graphic novels, including The Poker Club and Cage of Night. In comics, he wrote for DC and Dark Horse. Diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2002, he continued writing despite his illness until his passing in 2016. Critics lauded him as one of the most original crime writers of his generation and a “poet of dark suspense.”
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Edward Joseph Gorman Jr. was a prolific American author and anthologist, widely recognized for his contributions to crime, mystery, western, and horror fiction. Born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Gorman spent much of his life in the Midwest, drawing on that experience to set many of his novels in small towns. After working over two decades in advertising, political speechwriting, and industrial filmmaking, he published his first novel, Rough Cut, in 1984 and soon transitioned to full-time writing. His fiction is often praised for its emotional depth, suspenseful storytelling, and nuanced characters. Gorman wrote under the pseudonyms Daniel Ransom and Robert David Chase, and contributed to publications such as Mystery Scene, Cemetery Dance, and Black Lizard. He co-founded Mystery Scene magazine and served as its editor and publisher until 2002, continuing his “Gormania” column thereafter. His works have been adapted for film and graphic novels, including The Poker Club and Cage of Night. In comics, he wrote for DC and Dark Horse. Diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2002, he continued writing despite his illness until his passing in 2016. Critics lauded him as one of the most original crime writers of his generation and a “poet of dark suspense.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
January 8, 2014
This is the first in a mystery series, featuring lawyer Sam McCain, who lives in the small town of Black River Falls, Iowa. It is 1959 and the book begins with Sam and the girl he yearns after, Pamela, watching Buddy Holly on the show which would prove to be his last. If you are a fan of Buddy Holly, then let me just warn you that McCain’s love of rock and roll is something that is mentioned in passing only and to set the scene; Holly himself does not feature in the novel. Each book in the series has the name of a song as the book title and that is more to show the year it is set than anything else. I only say this as many reviews, especially in the States, take great umbrage with the author getting facts wrong. I am not a Buddy Holly fan myself, but the date given as the date of his last show seems to match that I have looked up and, in any case, it is not important to the plot.
McCain is a small town lawyer, in a town which has too many lawyers, working for the rather intimidating Judge Esme Anne Whitney. This is very much small town America, with two prominent families fighting for power and reputation – the ‘old money’ Whitney’s and the ‘new money’ Sykes family – one of whom is Chief of Police. McCain does not seem to be in favour with either and he is not a typical hero; short, liberal in a town that is mostly not and unlucky in love. Mostly, he is a nice guy who does his best.
After dropping his beloved Pamela home (she is in love with another man, while McCain is not in love with the young girl who actually does care about him), Judge Whitney calls and asks him to go and investigate at her nephew’s house. McCain discovers that the nephew, a man who bullied him at school, claims he shot his wife, before later shooting himself. However, despite the confession, he feels all is not right and attempts to investigate the murder. This first novel really sets the scene of the town and the various undercurrents and tensions going on there. It is an enjoyable mystery – not quite a cosy, but without any graphic violence and an interesting background. Two books seem to be listed as the second in the series – “Will You Love me Tomorrow?” and “Wake Up Little Susie.” As far as I can tell, “Wake up....” is actually the second book – although it is a prequel, so it probably does not matter too much if you read them out of order. I will certainly be reading on in this series.
Lastly, a copy of this book was provided, by the publisher, for review.
McCain is a small town lawyer, in a town which has too many lawyers, working for the rather intimidating Judge Esme Anne Whitney. This is very much small town America, with two prominent families fighting for power and reputation – the ‘old money’ Whitney’s and the ‘new money’ Sykes family – one of whom is Chief of Police. McCain does not seem to be in favour with either and he is not a typical hero; short, liberal in a town that is mostly not and unlucky in love. Mostly, he is a nice guy who does his best.
After dropping his beloved Pamela home (she is in love with another man, while McCain is not in love with the young girl who actually does care about him), Judge Whitney calls and asks him to go and investigate at her nephew’s house. McCain discovers that the nephew, a man who bullied him at school, claims he shot his wife, before later shooting himself. However, despite the confession, he feels all is not right and attempts to investigate the murder. This first novel really sets the scene of the town and the various undercurrents and tensions going on there. It is an enjoyable mystery – not quite a cosy, but without any graphic violence and an interesting background. Two books seem to be listed as the second in the series – “Will You Love me Tomorrow?” and “Wake Up Little Susie.” As far as I can tell, “Wake up....” is actually the second book – although it is a prequel, so it probably does not matter too much if you read them out of order. I will certainly be reading on in this series.
Lastly, a copy of this book was provided, by the publisher, for review.
June 29, 2018
A mystery set in the 1950's by someone who goes into a rage whenever Ozzie and Harriet is mentioned. I couldn't get into it.
August 21, 2014
Sam McCain is an attorney and a private investigator in Black River Falls, Iowa. It’s the late 1950s and he likes rock and roll, Pall Malls and his rag-top 1951 red Ford convertible. Sam works for Judge Esme Ann Whitney, so when she calls him early in the morning and tells him to go to her nephew’s mansion he goes right out there; Kenny Whitney seems near hysterical, the Judge tells Sam. When he arrives he finds Kenny’s wife, Susan, dead in a pool of blood and Kenny holed up in his bedroom with a gun. Before he can get the whole story, however, Kenny shoots himself, but Sam doesn’t believe he killed Susan.
This is a basic murder mystery with a sprinkling of cultural references from the late 1950s that had me taking an enjoyable trip down memory lane. The plot has several twists and complications that kept me guessing, and there is a bit of romantic tension to add interest. Sam McCain is a great character and I like his interactions with the various women in his life – his mother, his sister, the judge, and two old flames. I also liked the very bad relationship between McCain and Sheriff Sykes, and think this sets up a nice source of tension for future novels in the series. On the other hand, I thought it lacked a little in terms of atmosphere; it is set in February and snow or cold is mentioned a couple of times, but mostly just ignored. On the whole, it’s a short, fast, enjoyable read, and I’ll probably read more of Gorman in the future.
This is a basic murder mystery with a sprinkling of cultural references from the late 1950s that had me taking an enjoyable trip down memory lane. The plot has several twists and complications that kept me guessing, and there is a bit of romantic tension to add interest. Sam McCain is a great character and I like his interactions with the various women in his life – his mother, his sister, the judge, and two old flames. I also liked the very bad relationship between McCain and Sheriff Sykes, and think this sets up a nice source of tension for future novels in the series. On the other hand, I thought it lacked a little in terms of atmosphere; it is set in February and snow or cold is mentioned a couple of times, but mostly just ignored. On the whole, it’s a short, fast, enjoyable read, and I’ll probably read more of Gorman in the future.
May 20, 2022
THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED is a terrific nostalgia vehicle, chopped and channeled and with plenty of cruising glide. Which is a good thing because the mystery plot is about as thin and tasty as a Bazooka bubble-gum wrapper.
But its author, the late Ed Gorman, is a stone pro who keeps things moving enjoyably enough, and once you appreciate this debut series novel, first published in 1998, for its time (1959) and its place (a small city in Iowa) and its complicated but connected community, you'll find yourself less frustrated by its pallid plot and its blink-and-you'l-miss-it, oh-by-the-way-here's-the-killer-and-the-motive finish.
I personally enjoyed the players and the way they seem to live for living in each other's pockets even as they agitate for more room to be their truest selves in a society so bent on control that it can't tolerate much individuality (usually in the form of private sexual adventure of the kind thar public society can't tolerate).
Sam McCain is a young man who grew up in the poor part of town but somehow managed to make it to law school; now, in his late twenties or thereabouts, and is now back home, working as an investigator for the imperious Judge Whitney, who likes to order him around at all hours and snap rubber bands at his face as a way of demonstrating the absoluteness of her power. When Sam is trying to get her alcoholic nephew out of a mess or save the Whitney reputation so the new-money Sykes clan doesn't take away her influence, he's off mooning for a girl who doesn't want him while feeling bad that he doesn't want the girl who moons over him. Or indulging his hardboiled crime-fiction tastes of the time: Peter Rabe, John D. MacDonald, Manhunt magazine and the Shell Scott stories of Richard S. Prather (nice Easter eggs for crime-fiction nostalgists). As Sam reflects: "I was a big fan of Gold Medal books. For twenty-five cents (plus a penny for the governor, as folks in Iowa like to say), you could get the likes of a brand-new novel by Rabe or Charles William or, my favorite, John D. MacDonald. They were well-written, intelligent books, too, despite the lurid covers. Of course, when you told people that, they’d just wink at you and say, 'Sure they are.' Then they’d nod to the cover with the seminaked girl and wink at-you again."
All in the wake of the nearby plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, who Sam had seen perform the night before. This hits Sam hard: "I liked Buddy Holly because he was kind of gawky and I liked Richie Valens because he was Mexican. They didn’t fit in and I’ve never fit in either. So they were more than really great rock and rollers. They were guys I identified with."
While Sam is running around town trying to figure out who killed Susan Whitney, the estranged wife of the nephew, we meet a colorful crew of local characters, all of whom feel they have Sam pegged to the point that they appear to know way too much about his love life, or lack thereof. Some of the more colorful characters include Cliff Sykes, the sadistic police chief; Maggie, the "beatnik" girl who disturbs — and pleases — Sam with her coldly transactional view of sex; Ruthie, the infatuation-addled little sister who tries in increasingly desperation to conceal her pregnancy; the Renaulds, a "New Yorker" couple consisting of a "ruthlessly weak" husband and a "pathetically strong" wife who psychologically collaborate on his many affairs, among many others (bigots, anti-rock-and-rollers, etc.). There's a tidily stage-managed quality to the way they're whisked on and off stage as mirror moments for Sam, which is less than satisfying, but the peek inside their private lives is still pleasurable. As Sam muses: "In a small town, you get punished for being different in any way, and sometimes when you sit in a small-town barbershop you get a sense of what Salem must have been like during the witch trials. Reputations get smeared, sometimes ruined permanently. Women get ripped up especially hard. A divorcée is inevitably a whore, and a widow is invariably a pent-up, frustrated sex machine. The modern version of the lynch mob: They hang you with innuendo and lies."
Ed Gorman was born in 1941, and so he would have been eighteen at the time of the events of THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED, and it is clear that he loves that period of his life and American life in virtually every passage. If you share that love, or can at least empathize with it because you too feel as though popular culture and possibilities peaked at that age for you, you can find great pleasure in the way Gorman relates to the world outside his window through the world far beyond it.
And that gives rise to passages like this that give THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED a poignancy and texture that lifts this novel above its paper-thin, push-button plot:
"A small Iowa town like this, people liked to show their sophistication by shunning country music. Badge of honor."
"Small-town radio alternates between Bing Crosby records and local news and what they call Trader Tom, who conducts a five-minute show every hour to tell the good people what kind of deal you can get on certain second-hand items, and who to call if you’re interested."
"The people looked clean, too—young, old, rich, poor, clean and bright and friendly, even the young ones in the black leather jackets and the duck’s a*s haircuts. They liked to play at being bad, some of the older boys, but mostly what they did was cruise the loop area with their radios up too loud and call out to the pretty girls on the streets, and snarl at any male who wasn’t dressed the way they were."
"Her speech is as eccentric as her Gauloises, a touch of Kate Hepburn, a dollop of Ayn Rand, whose books fill the glass bookcase behind her massive leather executive chair."
"She had one of those wan faces that is pretty in an almost oppressive way. She always looks as if she might break into tears at any moment."
"I’ve never had any luck at all with women who are called easy. In fact, once I hear a woman described that way, I know I’ll never score, not even with a submachine gun and a bag of cash."
"Kids were lobbing snowballs back and forth, yard to yard. Scarves were trailing behind the prone bodies of kids steering their sleds downhill to the sidewalks. In a lot of houses, small groups of kids would be gathered in front of the TV watching Hopalong Cassidy or Howdy Doody or the Three Stooges. And moms in kitchens would be starting supper, the smells rich and good on the chill melancholy of the fading winter day, spaghetti and pot roasts and cheese casseroles."
"Yeah, he always talked like Iowa City was Mecca. Or something. She was going to run away from Kenny and he was going to run away from his wife and they were going to be this real cool artistic couple and live in Iowa City.”
“Just what I always wanted to have. A conversation with my brother about douching.”
"If every girl in this town who went all the way in high school ended up in Chicago on the streets, there wouldn’t be room for anybody else to walk.”
"I tossed my skates over my shoulder as casually as I could, hoping I resembled one of those ski bums you always see in whiskey ads. You know, the ones with the perfect teeth."
"Tjaden has the kind of bland Van Johnson good looks that old ladies like and men don’t dislike."
"I sat down. I lit up a Pall Mall. I sat back in the booth and looked at him. And said nothing. It was good cop technique, which I learned at the police academy. Silence frequently makes people more nervous."
"I wanted to run out the door. I’d learned far more about their relationship than I’d wanted to. I hated her for being so pathetically strong, and him for being so ruthlessly weak. He was a lot more dangerous than she was. He’d pull you down and destroy you without even understanding what he was doing."
"Steak is the talisman: a family that can have steak twice a week is in good shape. And these days most blue-collar families can eat steak just about as often as white-collar families. It’s as if they’re scared it’ll all go away if they don’t constantly remind themselves of their great good fortune."
"McCain, you don’t seem to understand. Kenny and I never communicated unless it was absolutely necessary. Having him out to the house would be like having Adlai Stevenson over for dinner.”
"I don’t have anything against colored people, McCain—I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body—but being nice to colored people is one thing but actually having them as friends …”
But its author, the late Ed Gorman, is a stone pro who keeps things moving enjoyably enough, and once you appreciate this debut series novel, first published in 1998, for its time (1959) and its place (a small city in Iowa) and its complicated but connected community, you'll find yourself less frustrated by its pallid plot and its blink-and-you'l-miss-it, oh-by-the-way-here's-the-killer-and-the-motive finish.
I personally enjoyed the players and the way they seem to live for living in each other's pockets even as they agitate for more room to be their truest selves in a society so bent on control that it can't tolerate much individuality (usually in the form of private sexual adventure of the kind thar public society can't tolerate).
Sam McCain is a young man who grew up in the poor part of town but somehow managed to make it to law school; now, in his late twenties or thereabouts, and is now back home, working as an investigator for the imperious Judge Whitney, who likes to order him around at all hours and snap rubber bands at his face as a way of demonstrating the absoluteness of her power. When Sam is trying to get her alcoholic nephew out of a mess or save the Whitney reputation so the new-money Sykes clan doesn't take away her influence, he's off mooning for a girl who doesn't want him while feeling bad that he doesn't want the girl who moons over him. Or indulging his hardboiled crime-fiction tastes of the time: Peter Rabe, John D. MacDonald, Manhunt magazine and the Shell Scott stories of Richard S. Prather (nice Easter eggs for crime-fiction nostalgists). As Sam reflects: "I was a big fan of Gold Medal books. For twenty-five cents (plus a penny for the governor, as folks in Iowa like to say), you could get the likes of a brand-new novel by Rabe or Charles William or, my favorite, John D. MacDonald. They were well-written, intelligent books, too, despite the lurid covers. Of course, when you told people that, they’d just wink at you and say, 'Sure they are.' Then they’d nod to the cover with the seminaked girl and wink at-you again."
All in the wake of the nearby plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, who Sam had seen perform the night before. This hits Sam hard: "I liked Buddy Holly because he was kind of gawky and I liked Richie Valens because he was Mexican. They didn’t fit in and I’ve never fit in either. So they were more than really great rock and rollers. They were guys I identified with."
While Sam is running around town trying to figure out who killed Susan Whitney, the estranged wife of the nephew, we meet a colorful crew of local characters, all of whom feel they have Sam pegged to the point that they appear to know way too much about his love life, or lack thereof. Some of the more colorful characters include Cliff Sykes, the sadistic police chief; Maggie, the "beatnik" girl who disturbs — and pleases — Sam with her coldly transactional view of sex; Ruthie, the infatuation-addled little sister who tries in increasingly desperation to conceal her pregnancy; the Renaulds, a "New Yorker" couple consisting of a "ruthlessly weak" husband and a "pathetically strong" wife who psychologically collaborate on his many affairs, among many others (bigots, anti-rock-and-rollers, etc.). There's a tidily stage-managed quality to the way they're whisked on and off stage as mirror moments for Sam, which is less than satisfying, but the peek inside their private lives is still pleasurable. As Sam muses: "In a small town, you get punished for being different in any way, and sometimes when you sit in a small-town barbershop you get a sense of what Salem must have been like during the witch trials. Reputations get smeared, sometimes ruined permanently. Women get ripped up especially hard. A divorcée is inevitably a whore, and a widow is invariably a pent-up, frustrated sex machine. The modern version of the lynch mob: They hang you with innuendo and lies."
Ed Gorman was born in 1941, and so he would have been eighteen at the time of the events of THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED, and it is clear that he loves that period of his life and American life in virtually every passage. If you share that love, or can at least empathize with it because you too feel as though popular culture and possibilities peaked at that age for you, you can find great pleasure in the way Gorman relates to the world outside his window through the world far beyond it.
And that gives rise to passages like this that give THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED a poignancy and texture that lifts this novel above its paper-thin, push-button plot:
"A small Iowa town like this, people liked to show their sophistication by shunning country music. Badge of honor."
"Small-town radio alternates between Bing Crosby records and local news and what they call Trader Tom, who conducts a five-minute show every hour to tell the good people what kind of deal you can get on certain second-hand items, and who to call if you’re interested."
"The people looked clean, too—young, old, rich, poor, clean and bright and friendly, even the young ones in the black leather jackets and the duck’s a*s haircuts. They liked to play at being bad, some of the older boys, but mostly what they did was cruise the loop area with their radios up too loud and call out to the pretty girls on the streets, and snarl at any male who wasn’t dressed the way they were."
"Her speech is as eccentric as her Gauloises, a touch of Kate Hepburn, a dollop of Ayn Rand, whose books fill the glass bookcase behind her massive leather executive chair."
"She had one of those wan faces that is pretty in an almost oppressive way. She always looks as if she might break into tears at any moment."
"I’ve never had any luck at all with women who are called easy. In fact, once I hear a woman described that way, I know I’ll never score, not even with a submachine gun and a bag of cash."
"Kids were lobbing snowballs back and forth, yard to yard. Scarves were trailing behind the prone bodies of kids steering their sleds downhill to the sidewalks. In a lot of houses, small groups of kids would be gathered in front of the TV watching Hopalong Cassidy or Howdy Doody or the Three Stooges. And moms in kitchens would be starting supper, the smells rich and good on the chill melancholy of the fading winter day, spaghetti and pot roasts and cheese casseroles."
"Yeah, he always talked like Iowa City was Mecca. Or something. She was going to run away from Kenny and he was going to run away from his wife and they were going to be this real cool artistic couple and live in Iowa City.”
“Just what I always wanted to have. A conversation with my brother about douching.”
"If every girl in this town who went all the way in high school ended up in Chicago on the streets, there wouldn’t be room for anybody else to walk.”
"I tossed my skates over my shoulder as casually as I could, hoping I resembled one of those ski bums you always see in whiskey ads. You know, the ones with the perfect teeth."
"Tjaden has the kind of bland Van Johnson good looks that old ladies like and men don’t dislike."
"I sat down. I lit up a Pall Mall. I sat back in the booth and looked at him. And said nothing. It was good cop technique, which I learned at the police academy. Silence frequently makes people more nervous."
"I wanted to run out the door. I’d learned far more about their relationship than I’d wanted to. I hated her for being so pathetically strong, and him for being so ruthlessly weak. He was a lot more dangerous than she was. He’d pull you down and destroy you without even understanding what he was doing."
"Steak is the talisman: a family that can have steak twice a week is in good shape. And these days most blue-collar families can eat steak just about as often as white-collar families. It’s as if they’re scared it’ll all go away if they don’t constantly remind themselves of their great good fortune."
"McCain, you don’t seem to understand. Kenny and I never communicated unless it was absolutely necessary. Having him out to the house would be like having Adlai Stevenson over for dinner.”
"I don’t have anything against colored people, McCain—I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body—but being nice to colored people is one thing but actually having them as friends …”
Read
December 31, 2013The Day the Music Died is the first book in Ed Gorman's series featuring perpetually broke lawyer/P.I. Sam McCain. It was published in 1998 but is now being re-released on Dec. 31th, 2013 by both Mysterious Press and Open Roads Media.. Not coincidentally, this makes it my last review for 2013.
I must confess that I decided to read this for the title. I love fiction that has a basis in musical pop culture. For those who don't know, the title is a line from Don Mclean's song American Pie which refers to the airplane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper. All of the titles of the Sam McCain novels come from song lines or titles. So my first and biggest disappointment was that Ed Gorman does not use the music very much or as much as I would suspect. The day Buddy Holly dies is the day this mystery begins but very little comes from this tie-in. More disturbingly, the protagonist Sam McCain relates as much feeling to the death of his hero as to the death of his friends which is almost none. I know McCain is a typical macho P. I. but a little insight might have been nice.
But laying off of that peeve, I have to admit that this mystery is rather entertaining if a little predictable and flat. McCain finds the spoiled son of his boss, the judge in a small town, with his wife who he presumably shot. The spoiled son then kills himself. it looks like a clear-cut murder/suicide but of course Sam is suspicious.
Here we come to the main strength of this novel. Sam investigates and find himself addressed many different people with different strokes in this small town. The authors strong point is making the town and the interactions of its inhabitants a prime part of the puzzle. Gorman has a good feel of small town life in the 50s and it shows. The author uses some social topics well, placing them nicely in the '50 mentality. As a whole, the characters feel real. Yet individually, they seem like cogs in a wheel showing little dimension. I especially wanted to find out more about our main character besides the fact that he is whining about the girl he will never get...at least not in the first novel. While I enjoyed the novel it just didn't hold me enough to think about reading the rest. So I will never know if he gets Ginger or Mary-Lou. (not the names used in the novel. I just couldn't resist the Gillian's Island reference) Or does he forget about Buddy Holly in the nest few years and start digging the Beatles? I'll never know.
I must confess that I decided to read this for the title. I love fiction that has a basis in musical pop culture. For those who don't know, the title is a line from Don Mclean's song American Pie which refers to the airplane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper. All of the titles of the Sam McCain novels come from song lines or titles. So my first and biggest disappointment was that Ed Gorman does not use the music very much or as much as I would suspect. The day Buddy Holly dies is the day this mystery begins but very little comes from this tie-in. More disturbingly, the protagonist Sam McCain relates as much feeling to the death of his hero as to the death of his friends which is almost none. I know McCain is a typical macho P. I. but a little insight might have been nice.
But laying off of that peeve, I have to admit that this mystery is rather entertaining if a little predictable and flat. McCain finds the spoiled son of his boss, the judge in a small town, with his wife who he presumably shot. The spoiled son then kills himself. it looks like a clear-cut murder/suicide but of course Sam is suspicious.
Here we come to the main strength of this novel. Sam investigates and find himself addressed many different people with different strokes in this small town. The authors strong point is making the town and the interactions of its inhabitants a prime part of the puzzle. Gorman has a good feel of small town life in the 50s and it shows. The author uses some social topics well, placing them nicely in the '50 mentality. As a whole, the characters feel real. Yet individually, they seem like cogs in a wheel showing little dimension. I especially wanted to find out more about our main character besides the fact that he is whining about the girl he will never get...at least not in the first novel. While I enjoyed the novel it just didn't hold me enough to think about reading the rest. So I will never know if he gets Ginger or Mary-Lou. (not the names used in the novel. I just couldn't resist the Gillian's Island reference) Or does he forget about Buddy Holly in the nest few years and start digging the Beatles? I'll never know.
October 26, 2018
That fourth star might just be because this light-hearted mystery was just what this reader needed, after three successive reads that made me very sad (one just because it seemed pointless). This was a discovery via download; I've now found there are several more in the series (the author died a few years ago). I liked Sam. I liked the folks in his little Iowa town. I like Iowa. This was a funny read in places but never lost sight of being a mystery. There was murder, racial tension, illicit love affairs, nostalgia, unwanted pregnancies, booze, family rivalries, hard-luck heros, sociopaths...I mean cops, drugs, all the usual elements. At one point I said to myself, "Boy, he doesn't hold anything back. Just lays it right out for you. No trying to solve it along the way." Oops. A couple of surprises I didn't see coming and at least one of them I definitely should have. At less than 200 pages, this was just a nice little snack of a book. Pretty sure I'm going to look for more tales of Sam McCain.
May 24, 2017
This is a good, old-fashioned mystery that moves quickly and keeps your interest until the end. An enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.
December 2, 2016
I'd had this book on my shelf for a while, and was reminded to read it by Ed Gorman's recent passing. I enjoyed it and will be searching out the rest of the series. Set at the time of the Iowa plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, Gorman's novel shows an Iowa that is both different and the same as the state that went for Trump in the recent election. Protagonist Sam McCain is a young man who grew up in The Knolls, an area of his small town that belies its bucolic name by being the "wrong side of the tracks." He's an attorney with very few clients who supplements his income as a private investigator; he's short, slight, and hopelessly in love with a girl who wants more status and income than he can provide. The day after the plane crash Sam ends up finding three bodies over the course of the day. The dreadful local police chief has one theory about the first two bodies; Sam's PI client, an aristocratic local judge, has another, and Sam has other troubles as well. Class and race conflicts play a big part in the story. The ending was a surprise to me and left me wanting more of Sam's investigations. Recommended.
June 25, 2008
This is a fun visit to the 1950's, complete with references to old TV shows and hit records. The mystery part is just so-so but the "good old days", as well as the not-so-good of illegal abortions and racism, make it a cut above many mysteries.
January 19, 2012
A modest start to a P.I series. Ed Gorman has written better in other novels.
February 14, 2024
Ed Gorman oli üks kogumiku „Dark Love“ parimaid autoreid, keda meie krimiseminari gurud taevani kiitsid. Kui Sam McCaini sari müügile tuli, siis kasutasingi juhust.
Esimese raamatu põhjal on raske midagi arvata. Tegevus toimub Black River Fallsis ja kogu lugu algab (muidugi) veebruaris 1959, kui kolm kuulsat musameest Beechcraft Bonanzaga alla kukkusid. Kusagil Iowa osariigis asuv linnake on kahe konkureeriva klanni lahinguväli ning sotsiaalselt kohmakas advokaat Sam McCain asub kusagil nende vahel. Sam on muide kahe kassi omanik, edestades sellega ühte kuulsat šotlast.
Plusspoole koha pealt tuleb märkida, et Gorman on ajastu vaimu tabanud märksa erksamalt kui näiteks Stephen King oma Kennedy atentaadi raamatus. Kogu lugu on stiilselt melanhoolne/nostalgiline nagu mõnes Bradbury novellis (btw üks peategelase lemmikutest). Detailid on hästi paigas – Sami isa kannab Timexi kella ja 21tollist telekat peetakse keskklassi staatusesümboliks. Klassivahed on ka osavalt välja mängitud – peategelane on pärit kohalikust agulist, aga tema kliendid/vastased kuuluvad kohaliku aristokraatia hulka. Üle tüki aja on selles loos mitu realistlikku naistegelast.
Teise külje pealt on enamik peatükke üsna lühikesed, lõpevad reeglina cliffhanger’i kohal ja raamatu enda lõpp saabub suht ootamatult, kui osa liine on pooleli. Peategelane tegeleb korraga nii paljude asjadega, et tal kipub endalgi segi minema, kas tuleks kõigepealt mõrvar kinni võtta, oma armuasjad korda ajada või hoopis õe abort ära hoida. Julgeks väita, et selline rööprähklemine sai elunormiks veidi hiljem kui 1959. Autori varjamatu agenda kipub asju lihtsustama ja nii suur doos poliitikat ei tule ühelegi žanrile kasuks.
Esimese raamatu põhjal on raske midagi arvata. Tegevus toimub Black River Fallsis ja kogu lugu algab (muidugi) veebruaris 1959, kui kolm kuulsat musameest Beechcraft Bonanzaga alla kukkusid. Kusagil Iowa osariigis asuv linnake on kahe konkureeriva klanni lahinguväli ning sotsiaalselt kohmakas advokaat Sam McCain asub kusagil nende vahel. Sam on muide kahe kassi omanik, edestades sellega ühte kuulsat šotlast.
Plusspoole koha pealt tuleb märkida, et Gorman on ajastu vaimu tabanud märksa erksamalt kui näiteks Stephen King oma Kennedy atentaadi raamatus. Kogu lugu on stiilselt melanhoolne/nostalgiline nagu mõnes Bradbury novellis (btw üks peategelase lemmikutest). Detailid on hästi paigas – Sami isa kannab Timexi kella ja 21tollist telekat peetakse keskklassi staatusesümboliks. Klassivahed on ka osavalt välja mängitud – peategelane on pärit kohalikust agulist, aga tema kliendid/vastased kuuluvad kohaliku aristokraatia hulka. Üle tüki aja on selles loos mitu realistlikku naistegelast.
Teise külje pealt on enamik peatükke üsna lühikesed, lõpevad reeglina cliffhanger’i kohal ja raamatu enda lõpp saabub suht ootamatult, kui osa liine on pooleli. Peategelane tegeleb korraga nii paljude asjadega, et tal kipub endalgi segi minema, kas tuleks kõigepealt mõrvar kinni võtta, oma armuasjad korda ajada või hoopis õe abort ära hoida. Julgeks väita, et selline rööprähklemine sai elunormiks veidi hiljem kui 1959. Autori varjamatu agenda kipub asju lihtsustama ja nii suur doos poliitikat ei tule ühelegi žanrile kasuks.
June 13, 2025
I'd never heard of Ed Gorman until about a month ago, but after reading this book I intend to read much more of him. It's February 3rd, 1959, and our lead Sam McCain and his longtime friend Pamela are driving back home in his red '51 Ford convertible from Clear Lake, Iowa, having attended the Buddy Holly show earlier that night. You'd think they'd be chattering away about the concert, but instead Pamela is mostly silent. It's cold, the heater makes a racket, and the radio is turned way up to compensate, but that isn't the problem. Sam has been in love with Pamela since forever, but she in turn has been in love with another guy they know, also for forever, and besides, she isn't really a rock 'n roll fan, but she went along because she knew what the show meant to him. They have yet to learn that Buddy and others have been killed in an airplane crash while heading to the next gig. In the space of two or three paragraphs we learn so much about the times, the place, the emotional currents, and all along we know what the characters don't, not only that there will be a mystery, but also the 60's are just around the corner, obliterating the post-war era. This is first-class writing, and it demonstrates what it takes to be an outstanding mystery.
December 5, 2024
February 3, 1959. Who of my generation (we Baby Boomers) doesn't still love Buddy Holly? The night of the plane crash that took Holly, Richie Valens, and J. D. Richardson, The Big Bopper, was one of the first of the many memorials to musical talents lost much too young that we have shared down through the years. A youthful Waylon Jennings who played electric bass guitar for Holly gave up his place on the small plane to the Big Bopper, who had the flu. Open Road Media brought us this fine novel set in the 1950s/1960s in the small town of Black River Falls, Iowa, and brings back the nostalgia as well as the sorrow we all shared during that time. And through the eyes of small-town Lawyer/PI Sam McCain, we will get to hang around with Sam and his main client, cantankerous Judge Esme Anne Whitney as they stroll through local happenings in the wake of this tragedy, solving crimes and making enemies here and there as they work through the angst of it all, some family problems, and an odd murder or two.
I adored Sam. He's a Private Investigator because Black River Falls already has just too many lawyers, and he loved Bubby Holly because he was an unashamed Dweeb. Me, too. Buddy was from Lubbock, Texas, which is the closest big town to my childhood home of Roswell, NM. We considered him a 'local boy'. Probably I loved Sam because he is a bit geeky, as well. This is a series I can get my teeth into. Can't wait to read #2, Will You Still Love Me, Tomorrow.
Reviewed on December 4, 2024, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, BookBub, and Kobo. Not able to review on B&N.
I adored Sam. He's a Private Investigator because Black River Falls already has just too many lawyers, and he loved Bubby Holly because he was an unashamed Dweeb. Me, too. Buddy was from Lubbock, Texas, which is the closest big town to my childhood home of Roswell, NM. We considered him a 'local boy'. Probably I loved Sam because he is a bit geeky, as well. This is a series I can get my teeth into. Can't wait to read #2, Will You Still Love Me, Tomorrow.
Reviewed on December 4, 2024, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, BookBub, and Kobo. Not able to review on B&N.
June 20, 2020
Sam gets involved with the murder/suicide of Judge's nephew. He asks around about the wife's affairs and realizes the murder weapon was not one the husband had.
He also deals with his high school sister's pregnancy and a body found in a boat on a frozen pond being a result of a botched abortion. Pamela is still in love with Stu, while May gets engaged to the druggist.
Behind the scenes the plane of Buddy Holly has gone own after the concert he and Pam have attended. He also deals with the nephew's friendship with a colored football star and their estrangement a year ago.
Fast read with lots of historical detail.
He also deals with his high school sister's pregnancy and a body found in a boat on a frozen pond being a result of a botched abortion. Pamela is still in love with Stu, while May gets engaged to the druggist.
Behind the scenes the plane of Buddy Holly has gone own after the concert he and Pam have attended. He also deals with the nephew's friendship with a colored football star and their estrangement a year ago.
Fast read with lots of historical detail.
February 9, 2026
The Day the Music Died is Like Kissing Your Sister in the Fifties
The story is the best part of this book, including characters whether they want to be included or not. And the story is a sequence of days in the life of….
Yes, that’s the design of it all: a small town routine that’s a bit boring to outsiders, involving folks that are a bit boring to outsiders. But the story survives the process to completion, actually slowly taking shape into something pretty interesting.
Two problems: would it have killed the publisher to include part two chapters in the table of contents? and couldn’t at least one character have made a positive life milestone?
The story is the best part of this book, including characters whether they want to be included or not. And the story is a sequence of days in the life of….
Yes, that’s the design of it all: a small town routine that’s a bit boring to outsiders, involving folks that are a bit boring to outsiders. But the story survives the process to completion, actually slowly taking shape into something pretty interesting.
Two problems: would it have killed the publisher to include part two chapters in the table of contents? and couldn’t at least one character have made a positive life milestone?
October 7, 2017
I bought this book at a Half Priced Bookstore on sale for $3.00 only for it's title. A little disappointed that it was a mystery not directly related to the death of Buddy Holly! It was a interesting mystery and his discriptions were so enjoyable and reminded me of the old detective shows. A good touch of humor made it enjoyable to read also. It is the first in a series of mysteries he wrote!
July 26, 2020
First time reading Ed Gorman. I wanted to like this because of the title--I do love music! He spent time setting up the character because he wrote a lot in the series of Sam McCain. And that's ok, but the book is written about a time in America that was pretty depressing--about how the haves seem to rule over the have nots in this small Iowa town. Gritty, poverty & lots of racial discrimination. Going to try a 2nd one to see if it is a little less tense.
July 8, 2018
(3). Welcome to small town America, 1958, where death and racism and crazy stuff still goes on with great regularity. This is a great little read. Sam McCain is a totally engaging protagonist who takes us through a well crafted story of murder, a little music and more with some very nice twists and turns. I need to see what the follow ups in this series are. Big fun.
July 26, 2022
This was an interesting mystery, set in the 1950s in the United States. It was a good introduction to the detective who will be the subject in the series. I thought it well-written and it held my interest throughout, but I'm not sure if I will pursue the rest of the series, since I prefer British authors like Peter Grainger.
April 20, 2023
Small town Iowa lawyer working as a PI for one of the local judges runs into several murders in the first of this series. Obviously, this is not a literary marvel, but it is a late 1950s period novel that starts on the day the music died with that infamous plane crash in Iowa. I will read more of this series.
April 26, 2025
Excellent!!
I love this story and the author's references to music and events in past years. This will bring back memories for anyone who has thee pleasure of reading this book. Great author and I definitely look forward to more!!
I love this story and the author's references to music and events in past years. This will bring back memories for anyone who has thee pleasure of reading this book. Great author and I definitely look forward to more!!
January 14, 2018
A murder mystery in the 1950’s. I enjoyed all the cultural references. Sam was fun to get to know. Other then that, an ok read.
Read for fulfilling Popsugar reading challenge.
Read for fulfilling Popsugar reading challenge.
January 14, 2018
Totally loved it. I really liked Sam and I really enjoyed the references to 1950s pop culture. The mystery was also enthralling. Can't wait to get onto the next book in the series
January 18, 2018
Enjoyable. Want to read another. Almost spent too much time setting the 1950's.
May 16, 2018
It's not great literature, and Gorman tries just a bit to hard to make it 1958; but it's great fun and decently written. I'm ready for more McCain.
July 2, 2018
I liked the writing style and the book was an easy read. My problem was that it seemed everyone in town was racist, and yes, I know the book is set in the '50s, but it just set my teeth on edge.
August 25, 2018
I was bored.
August 6, 2020
I enjoyed this short mystery. Characters are colorful, and while some of their behavior may be predictable, the story was not.
January 30, 2021
Rock and Roll and Murder
My first Sam McCain story but won't be my last. Sam's a lawyer that doesn't practice law. He solves problems.
My first Sam McCain story but won't be my last. Sam's a lawyer that doesn't practice law. He solves problems.
March 9, 2021
Eh, nothing great. Pretty boring in fact. Thought I’d would revolve more around the actual day the music died. Not so.
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