Streets of Nashville

by Michael Amos Cody

In Streets of Nashville, Ezra MacRae has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of songs and their writers, and he has moved from the North Carolina mountains to Nashville's Music Row with the dream of becoming part of that songwriting world. Yet just as he is out on the town to celebrate his first good fortune after several years of trying-a staff songwriting contract with an independent music publisher-he witnesses the man who signed on the dotted lines with him gunned down with three others outside his Music Row office. The masked gunman spares Ezra. But why?

Genres: Crime

346 pages, Paperback

Published April 15, 2025

Reviews

[Michael Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Streets of Nashville is my second novel (third book of fiction). On April 15, 2025, Madville Publishing will release the novel into the wild world (whatever form that takes after the November 2024 election)! Its main character is a songwriter named Ezra MacRae, five years into his attempt to establish a viable career on Nashville’s Music Row.

The novel began with a scene written for—but cut from—my first novel Gabriel's Songbook, a scene that was part of Gabriel's dark night of the soul in Nashville. He has had yet another devastating setback to his dream of rock 'n' roll fame. He's out for a walk on Music Row and meets a street character named Benny Jack, who gives him a glimpse into a possible future that is the polar opposite of his dream. Ultimately, I decided that the scene was a little too much like piling on poor Gabriel, so I cut it.

But I kept it.

When ideas of Ezra MacRae's story began bubbling in my brain, I came across the scene again in my notes. Ezra is a songwriter like Gabriel, but he has no dreams of stage and stardom. He just wants to make a living writing songs. Unlike Gabriel's meeting with Benny Jack as the singer-songwriter's career hopes seem to flounder, Ezra's meeting with Benny Jack takes place when Ezra has just gotten his first hints of songwriting success after five years of writing songs—and cleaning swimming pools for a living.

In early March, 1989, a man in black murders a music chart analyst on famed 16th Avenue. Fifteen days later, gunfire echoes along the Row again when four people are shot—three fatally—in the wee hours of Easter Sunday morning. Tenderfoot songwriter Ezra MacRae—out on the town to celebrate the first good fortune he has had with his songs (after six years in Music City)—witnesses the triple homicide, but the masked gunman spares him. While Nashville Metro PD’s investigation progresses, the killer develops an obsession with Ezra—calling him, following him, haunting him, but not eliminating him. Ezra tries to carry on with his songwriting, maintain his day job cleaning pools, and assist in the investigation as he can. When the methodical mind behind the Easter killings begins to unravel, the violence—including the threat to Ezra—escalates in Nashville and moves toward a final confrontation in an isolated farmhouse near Ezra’s hometown of Runion, in the North Carolina mountains.


Two additional Ezra MacRae novels are in progress. If you'd like to read a prequel to Streets of Nashville, check out my short story "I Could Be the One" in Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024 from Down & Out Books.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm always on the lookout for novels where music plays a key role, and this is one of the best. Ezra MacRae, the songwriter at the heart of this novel, is a believable and fully engaging character, struggling to balance the challenge of growing older (30 seems so old, when you're 30) with needing to keep chasing his dream. Cody drops Ezra into a very specific time and place (Nashville, 1989) and into the center of a mysterious group of murders. The plot gets tense, and the cast of characters grows large, but we never lose sight of Ezra or his dream. That's a trick balancing act, and Cody pulls it off beautifully.

[Heather Levy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cody’s Streets of Nashville is a lyrical love letter to the musicians who built the city as well as a powerful exploration of friendship and brutality. With his authentic, empathetic voice, Cody is a welcome addition to Southern crime fiction. I look forward to more Ezra MacRae stories to come!

[Whiskey Leavins · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the cover of Streets of Nashville by Michael Amos Cody there is a blurb from Kirkus Reviews that reads, “a bold thriller.” That is an understatement somewhat along the lines of, Steph Curry is good at basketball. Seriously, this book hits the ground running and doesn’t let up. As thrillers go, it’s top-drawer.

Our everyman protagonist and all-around good guy, Ezra MacRae, is an up-and-coming songwriter, who starts the book with some good news and some bad news. On the good side, he’s just signed a contract as a Music Row staff writer. On the bad side, he witnesses a late-night Music Row triple-murder. The killer sees him and decides to let him go. Then comes 300-plus pages of the most nerve-wracking cat-and-mouse game imaginable. The killer knows he needs to take care of Ezra at some point. Ezra knows he needs to be taken care of. Cody masterfully turns the screws, slowly but steadily, on this premise. I don’t want to say much else to avoid spoilers. I’ll just say this: Our bad guy is a creepy sociopath that would challenge Anton Chigurh. There is also the most tense fictional version of Russian Roulette since The Deer Hunter. The book is packed with terrific characters, as fleshed out as they need to be, as well as insights into the songwriting mindset. Clever dialogue and vivid prose tie it all together.

On a personal note, the setting was particularly vivid for me. I lived in Nashville in the mid-1980s, and haven’t been there since. I’m sure I wouldn’t recognize the city today. But this book is set just a handful of years after I left. And THIS Nashville is the city I remember. The geography of the city, the presence of Cat’s Records. If you remember 1980s Nashville, this book does a masterful job of bringing those memories to life.

One more positive: if you are familiar with Michael Amos Cody’s previous books—and if you are not, I strongly urge you to remedy that deficiency—the novel Gabriel’s Songbook, and/or the short story collection, A Twilight Reel, there are well-placed, and comforting references to the locations and characters from the author’s previous works. Particularly welcome is a visit to Cody’s fictional Appalachian town of Runion. A place I'd like to visit.

[Tonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Streets of Nashville is about a songwriter living in Nashville in 1989 who is on the verge of giving up on his career and moving back home. He decides to give it one more chance, but then he witnesses a horrific murder on the streets of Nashville.

There is a lot to love about this book. It checks all the boxes of what I want most in a crime novel: a well-paced plot, interesting characters, and great writing that keeps me turning the page.

What stood out to me as being particularly exceptional in Streets of Nashville was the authoritative depiction of Nashville in the late 1980s. The main character lives and breathes music. His knowledge (and the author's knowledge) of the music industry in this time period is seamlessly integrated into the story.

The advice we get as writers is to write what we know. This has paid off for Michael Amos Cody in this novel.

Disclosure: I had the privilege of meeting Michael Amos Cody at the Appalachian Writer's Workshop in Hindman, Kentucky, and previewing an early version of the opening pages of this book.

[Kara Huchel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75! chilling atmosphere and kept me wondering what would happen next the whole time! i just love a good revenge story. i loved benny jack's lyrics, they were maybe my favorite parts, and the sweet friendship between two men which you don't see very often in fiction. the book provides such a vivid painting of nashville during late 80s. people with dreams, some who make it and some don't, and a very homely feel to it. interesting characters with goals for the most part.
that being said, minus stars for the mmc sleeping with pretty much every woman with a name in the book, and completely abandoning a character who cared for and seemed to love the main character, who stood up for him in a climactic fight, and is never heard from again. honestly this was so distracting for me i wanted to rate the book 3 stars but i blasted through this book so that didn't seem fair.

[Rick Childers]

From the opening chapter Michael Amos Cody’s prose is packed with enough stopping power to send the bullets flying off the page. In STREETS OF NASHVILLE the dialogue and storytelling ring together like the chords of a song… and what a chilling song it is.

[Jamey Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a solid, well-crafted thriller set in Nashville in 1989. Songwriters, murder, revenge, sexuality: it’s got a lot going on, and it does it all well.

[Christy Hallberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's my blurb for this fantastic novel:

In ‘Streets of Nashville’, aspiring songwriter Ezra MacRae is on the brink of success after years of struggle—until he becomes a witness to a brutal triple homicide on Music Row. Though the masked killer spares Ezra, he doesn’t leave him in peace, haunting and threatening him at every turn. As Ezra balances his dreams of writing songs with a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, the mystery deepens, pulling him back to his Western North Carolina roots. With rich detail and gritty suspense, Michael Amos Cody delivers a haunting tribute to the resilience needed to survive—and thrive—in the heart of Music City, solidifying him as one of the region’s most compelling voices—a talent I’ve admired since I read his debut novel, ‘Gabriel’s Songbook’.

[Alex Kenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

An elegantly written, mysterious and electric crime novel. Michael Amos Cody’s experience as a Nashville songwriter and encyclopedic knowledge of country music bring The Streets of Nashville to life. I particularly enjoyed reading how MC Ezra MacRae came up with song lyrics throughout the course of his day, and how random things reminded him of existing country songs. It felt like a very true representation of how an artist's mind works and provided a window into a songwriter's creative process.

[C.W. Blackwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Amos Cody does a fantastic job creating interesting and empathetic characters, especially his protagonist Ezra, a budding songwriter whose perilous odyssey through Nashville's urban landscape is much more than grist for the mill—it’s also a heart-rending exploration of music, violence, and the power of friendship. Streets of Nashville is an intelligent, heart-felt novel with plenty of authenticity to make it sing. Cody is a talented new voice in Southern fiction whose stories will appear on bookshelves for many years to come.

[C. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

At once an absorbing crime story and an insider’s love letter to a bygone place and time, The Streets of Nashville grabs ahold of the reader and doesn’t let go. Michael Amos Cody has written a murder ballad to make the bards of Music Row envious.

[Katy Goforth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A music-centric crime thriller packed with flawed characters in all the best ways. Cody blends the Nashville music scene with a murder mystery and delivers a journey of loyalty and loss. I can't wait to see what else is in store for Ezra MacRae.

[Barondestructo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the Nashville backdrop and the character work here, but had a very hard time buying our antagonist's bad decisions.

[Corinna Tang-Saporito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story but I think it could've been better written. Not enough threads throughout the story to explain everything so left all the explanation to the last chapter.