Notes on a Missing G-String

Jason Davey #2

by Winona Kent

The first time we met Jason Davey, he was entertaining passengers aboard the Alaska cruise ship Star Sapphire, Eight ‘til Late in the TopDeck Lounge.


Then he came ashore, got a gig playing lead guitar at London’s Blue Devil jazz club, and gained a certain amount of notoriety tracking down missing musician Ben Quigley in the Canadian north.


Now Jason’s back again, this time investigating the theft of £10,000 from a dancer’s locker at a Soho gentlemen’s club.Jason initially considers the case unsolvable. But the victim, Holly Medford, owes a lot of money to London crime boss Arthur Braskey and, fearing for her life, has gone into hiding at a posh London hotel.


Jason’s investigation takes him from Cha-Cha’s and Satin & Silk (two Soho lapdancing clubs) to Moonlight Desires (an agency featuring high class escorts) and finally to a charity firewalking event, where he comes face to face with Braskey and discovers not everything Holly’s been telling him is the complete truth.


As he becomes increasingly drawn into the seamy underside of Soho, Jason tries to save Gracie, his band-mate’s 14-year-old runaway daughter, from Holly’s brother Radu, a ruthless pimp, while at the same time protecting Holly herself from a vengeful Braskey – nearly losing his life, and Gracie’s – in the process.

333 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 2, 2019

About the author

Winona Kent is an award-winning author who was born in London, England and grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, where she completed her BA in English at the University of Regina. After moving to Vancouver, she graduated from UBC with an MFA in Creative Writing, and a diploma in Writing for Screen and TV from Vancouver Film School.

Winona's writing breakthrough came many years ago when she won First Prize in the Flare Magazine Fiction Contest with her short story about an all-night radio newsman, “Tower of Power”.

Her debut novel Skywatcher was a finalist in the Seal Books First Novel Award and was published by Bantam Books in 1989. This was followed by a sequel, The Cilla Rose Affair, and her first mystery, Cold Play, set aboard a cruise ship in Alaska.

After three time-travel romances (Persistence of Memory, In Loving Memory and Marianne's Memory), Winona returned to mysteries with Disturbing the Peace, a novella, in 2017 and the novel Notes on a Missing G-String in 2019, both featuring the character she first introduced in Cold Play, professional jazz musician / amateur sleuth Jason Davey.

The third and fourth books in Winona's Jason Davey Mystery series, Lost Time and Ticket to Ride, were published in 2020 and 2022. Her fifth Jason Davey Mystery, Bad Boy, was published in 2024.

Winona also writes short fiction. Her story “Salty Dog Blues” appeared in Sisters in Crime-Canada West's anthology Crime Wave in October 2020 and was nominated as a finalist in Crime Writers of Canada's Awards of Excellence for Best Crime Novella in April 2021. “Blue Devil Blues” was one of the four entries in the anthology Last Shot, published in June 2021, and “Terminal Lucidity” appeared in the Sisters in Crime-Canada West anthology, Women of a Certain Age (October 2022). “On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog”, will appear in the upcoming Sisters in Crime-Canada West anthology, Dangerous Games (October 2024).

A collection of Winona’s short stories, Ten Stories That Worried My Mother, was published in 2023.

Winona has been a temporary secretary, a travel agent, a screenwriter and the Managing Editor of a literary magazine. Winona's currently the national Vice-Chair and the regional BC/YT rep for the Crime Writers of Canada, and is also an active member of Sisters in Crime – Canada West. After many decades working in jobs completely unrelated to writing, Winona is now happily embracing life as a full-time author. She lives in New Westminster, BC with her husband, and a concerning number of disobedient houseplants, many of which were rescued from her apartment building’s compost bin after being abandoned by previous owners.

Reviews

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Musician and aspiring private detective, Jason Davey is contacted by his old friend, Sal, to help find missing money that’s been stolen from her friend, Holly. As a favor to Sal, Jason agrees to ask some questions at the strip club where Holly worked as a dancer. But Jason soon catches the attention of dangerous people with their own agendas.

This delightful mystery has plenty of twists and surprising turns. Jason’s a well-developed character as are the others in the novel. The Soho setting is vividly portrayed and the details depicting Jason’s professional life as a jazz musician are excellent. Another aspect I like about the book is that the subplot converged well with the main storyline.

The author provides a satisfying ending while at the same time showing that not everyone can get what they want. This is the third Jason Davey mystery I’ve read and each time I learn more about Jason, his family, and his professional life. Notes a Missing G-String is an excellent read with plenty of humorous moments. Highly recommended.

[Joanne Guidoccio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in two sittings and had trouble putting it down. Ms. Kent has a way of drawing me into her stories and keeping me hooked until the end. It helps to have an intriguing protagonist like Jason Davey, who has a knack for stumbling into high-stakes crime scenarios. Like the first installment—Disturbing the Peace—Notes on a Missing G-String is a fast-paced novel filled with plot twists, exotic and ruthless characters, a teenage runaway, and a love child…all set against the seamy underside of Soho.

Next, please!