About Graveyard Blues
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“Mrs. Canover was sitting in the waiting room holding her dead husband, Herman, on her lap when Molly arrived at the office.”
Chapter One, Graveyard Blues
Set in Brooklyn, New York a little over a year after September 11th, 2001, this multi-layered mystery features social worker Molly Lewin, who first appeared in a series of short stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
After one of Molly's elderly clients, Cal Buchman, is murdered and his 82-year old life-companion, Willie Cobb, a one time Delta bluesman, is threatened with eviction, Molly discovers a scheme by a group of developers who want to demolish the low-rent buildings occupied by mostly elderly tenants and replace them with an upscale shopping complex. To Molly, a neighborhood's older people are like the roots of a tree. “Without [this] strong root network, there is no continuity, no history, nothing to maintain the balance of life in a community.”
The murder, and then another one, reconnects her with NYPD Detective Steve Carmaggio, a troubled Viet Nam vet and recovering alcoholic last seen by Molly the night before the Twin Towers were destroyed. Another of the disappearing men in her life is Molly's dearly loved brother, Ben, whose once exceptional mind is relentlessly vanishing into the unfathomable world of his mental illness.
Still, Molly sees life's humor as well as its tragedies. She becomes friends with Da Mour, a cross-dresser known to her in another guise, who may or may not be trying to date her, but who definitely knows something about the murders. Da Mour is but one of several surprising, quirky but never cartoonish characters that provide Molly with information and support. But it is ultimately the music that supplies the inspiration she needs to unravel the mysteries in her life, including the solution to the murders.