The Vinyl Detective: Flip Back (Paperback)

Reviews

"My review" by Breakaway R. - 22 July 2019

Another search for missing vinyl by our intrepid hero and his friends. This is the second book that I have read in this series, and although the basic plot remains the same, our detective, together with his girlfriend Nevada and his friends Clean Head and Tinkler are searching for a rare vinyl record, the plot is entertaining as well as being amusing. Black Dog was a successful band back in the day, but they became famous when the leader of the group decided to burn a million dollars on a remote island off the coast of Northumberland just because he could. He also decided to destroy all copies of their final album, but The Vinyl Detective discovers that there may be a few left which can be distinguished by the album cover that has a flip back, hence the title of this book. Most of the group that split up after the stunt with the money have lived or had houses on Halig Island and eventually our intrepid band travel there in the hope of finding the elusive record in one of the band’s collections. However, things become complicated when various members of the band start to die. The manager has already been killed apparently by a deranged groupie who then committed suicide. Then, drummer of the band is also killed by his wife, and the violinist is accused of killing his wife. When The Detective and his friends are also almost killed by crossing from the island to the mainland when the tides are dangerous, and they discover that the warning board has been tampered with, they realise that maybe the publicity stunt was faked, and someone has still got all the money supposedly burnt and is killing the band members to ensure the truth is not revealed. I did enjoy this book but, at times, it was too far-fetched and therefore not as good as the previous one I had read. The characters did not really become more real to me, and I feel that maybe there are not too many variations on the theme of searching for a rare record left to be written. Well worth a read but not as good as his other book for me. Dexter Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review