Elder Darrow Mysteries: Books 1-3
(2019)(A book in the Elder Darrow Mystery series)
An omnibus of novels by Richard J Cass
Book 1: In Solo Time An alcoholic walks into a bar . . . and buys it. At the urging of his sometimes lover and sometimes drinking partner Jacquie Robillard, Elder Darrow uses the last of the money from the trust fund his mother left him to buy the Esposito, a bucket-of-blood bar in Boston that he plans to turn into a jazz nightclub. But before he can turn the place around, the body of Timmy McGuire, a jazz guitar player, shows up on the small stage at the Esposito, stabbed to death. Dan Burton, a Boston Homicide detective, likes Jacquie for the murder. She had a contentious relationship with the guitar player (and a few other men along the way). But one of the other men Jacquie is involved with is the son of an old-line Boston landlord with political designs on the commonwealth’s governorship. Burton arrests Jacquie for Timmy McGuire''s murder but Elder is certain something darker and deeper than a lover’s quarrel is at stake. Jacquie is released on bail. When she shows up dead, Elder is drawn into a conspiracy going back to Timmy’s childhood, an arson in the three-decker in Mattapan where he grew up, and the unraveling of a political conspiracy. Elder’s need to solve Timmy’s murder peaks when his jazz singer lady friend, Alison Somers, is kidnapped by the perpetrators. In the end, he has to solve the mystery and rescue Alison without the help of the police or anyone else. Book 2: Solo Act Though Elder Darrow knows that working in a bar is going to test his sobriety, 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 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. Book 3: Burton’s Solo When Dan Burton beats up Antoine Bousquet, the clothing designer suspect in the murder of two Chinese seamstresses, he jeopardizes his job as a homicide detective and his life. Bousquet is released without bail because of Burton’s mistake. When Bousquet turns up dead, beaten and tortured, Burton becomes the prime suspect. The department’s Internal Affairs inspectors, Bousquet’s live-in lover, several Russian gangsters, and the kingpin of the Boston underworld are all looking for Burton. Elder Darrow, Burton’s best friend and proprietor of the Esposito bar, has his own problems. After losing a lover, he’s started dating again, but the woman he’s attracted to is, unbeknownst to him, a high-level burglar. The Russian who are looking for Burton try to send an emissary to Elder through her, but the Russian messenger ends up dead and Darrow is held responsible. Elder hides Burton in the old family place in New Hampshire, but when he returns to bring Burton back to Boston, finds evidence of torture and bloodshed. Though he believes Burton may have killed Bousquet, he helps him save his position on the Boston Police Department and rescues him from death by a woman related to the two murdered seamstresses. In the process, they expose an evil scheme by which illegal immigrants were effectively enslaved to work in Antoine Bousquet’s sweat shops and they prove Burton’s innocence.
Genre: Mystery
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Richard J Cass's Elder Darrow Mysteries: Books 1-3