Solo Act / The Elder Darrow Mysteries (ePub)

The second mystery starring Boston bar owner Elder Darrow, an amateur sleuth who's "every bit as tender and engaging as Robert B. Parker's Spenser" (Jeri Theriault, author of In the Museum of Surrender).

The new owner of the Esposito, Elder Darrow knows that working in a bar is going to test his sobriety, and he's relying on the support of his ex-lover, a jazz singer named Alison Somers.

The two of them split when Alison moved to New York to further her career, but before she left, they made a pact: he'll stay off the booze if she keeps taking her antidepressants, which keep her from attempting suicide-again. Then Elder hears that Alison has killed herself by diving out of her apartment window.

Elder follows an instinct that tells him she wouldn't have quit taking her meds, or killed herself, without talking to him first. Trying to uncover the real story, he encounters a beautiful collector of jazz memorabilia, a Native American gangster with aspirations to management, and a bomb-throwing piano player. Along with his friend Dan Burton, a homicide cop, Elder finds himself entangled in a web of greed and corruption that threatens much more than his sobriety . . .

Praise for Richard Cass and the Elder Darrow Mysteries

"Richard Cass writes the kind of mysteries I first fell in love with-clever, twisty, and brimming with characters as colorful as they are well-drawn."-Chris Holm, Anthony Award-winning author of Michael Hendricks Novels

"Cass's version of noir Boston is dark and beautiful as a back alley after a morning rain."-Gerry Boyle, author of the Jack McMorrow Mysteries