This book and Misdemeanor Man are right up the alley of any Barry Manilow fan. A detective/lawyer who is also the front man of a Barry Manilow cover band try to balance working his daily job and trying to play for the man himself.

The book is quirky and will elicit a smile from any Fanilow. ( )

The hero of this book is so engaging that I'll eagerly read the next, and possibly pick up the first in the series (Misdemeanor Man - clever, right?) Who can resist a stubbornly loyal Manilow fan? The ensemble too is delightful...Preet, Meave and Terry are fresh as can be, if a little Rainbow-coalition-ish, but this *is* SanFrancisco, so that can be forgiven.

HOWEVER - the mystery itself got steamrolled by poor Gordy's life. I do love the Dad/Grampa/brother storyline. It's the most innovative series-detective backstory I've seen in a long time, and can easily sustain a series. I do NOT love Gordy's relentless mooning over his ex. Cut her loose, DS! She really drags the story down, especially since there was no moving forward over the course of this book. It's okay to have multi-book character arcs, but it's NOT okay for them to be static.

Besides, it's a criminal waste not to have Gordy's character in new relationships.

The flip side of this is that the entire stew of secondary storylines must be subservient to the mystery. And this mystery just wasn't interesting enough to keep everything glued together. Perhaps if there was more tension - no one is in peril, and with all the action behind us, the reader goes into ho-hum mode.

And there are simply waaaaay too many characters! I'm especially inept at keeping track of large casts, but still, cutting it to a few - or even tossing the reader a few bones in the form of stronger identifying keys - would help. ( )