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A fifteen-year-old boy firebombs a building as he listens to Vivaldi’s Winter Concerto splicing behind a red hot R ‘n’ B track. A veteran musician is found dead in an alley with the pulse of an old time reggae classic playing in his pocket. Rap sensation Lord Tribulation discovers his new found stardom threatened when he finds himself in the middle of both incidents.
His music is accused of inciting the firebombing, and the dead musician is his father. With the beat of the media and government blasting down his neck, LT’s search for the truth about his father’s death takes him back to an old flame, and on a retro trail to 1976. A time when music was politics and politics was music. A time when the heat-drenched streets of Notting Hill burst into open rebellion. A time that, as LT gets closer to the truth, could lead straight to his own murder . . .
An exciting, must-read, atmosphere-drenched novel set against the world of rap and East London.
His music is accused of inciting the firebombing, and the dead musician is his father. With the beat of the media and government blasting down his neck, LT’s search for the truth about his father’s death takes him back to an old flame, and on a retro trail to 1976. A time when music was politics and politics was music. A time when the heat-drenched streets of Notting Hill burst into open rebellion. A time that, as LT gets closer to the truth, could lead straight to his own murder . . .
An exciting, must-read, atmosphere-drenched novel set against the world of rap and East London.
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Reviews
'KILLER TUNE is a sharply observed, incisive and moving story of radical politics, conflicting loyalties and unfinished business.'
'Dreda Say Mitchell is an exciting new talent and her second novel, KILLER TUNE, shows her distinctive take on current urban noir.... The narrative throbs with energy and has a refreshing directness'
'I look forward to Dreda Say Mitchell's timely new novel, which switches between the contemporary hip-hop scene and the l976 carnival - a time when music was politics and politics was music.'
'An interesting, original novel, worth reading, even if you don't get half the references and in real life would block your ears to the noise'
'Mitchells' plot is elaborate but tightoy played, with a backbeat of racial abuse. Killer Tune lays the breezy muscial name-checking of Hornby's High Fidelity over a well-crafted murder mystery.'
'Publishing folklore has it that second novels are generally weaker than their predecessors - not Killer Tune, which is a big step up from Running Hot. It makes it encouragingly clear that Dreda Say Mitchell will be a figure in the crime-writing world for the forseeable future.'
'As good as it gets . . . Mitchell is English fiction's brightest new voice'