Song for Katy Shayne

When a music critic learns a talented young singer might have been murdered, he delves into the past, only to find peril in the present. For the first time in his life, journalist Jack Fiorello is out of work. The sixty-five-year-old music critic is adrift; not even his wife, Molly, can lift him from his funk.

Then a reader calls with a tip, and Jack is thrust into a story involving Katy Shayne, a long-dead singer-songwriter, and what might very well be her murder. Traveling across Greenwich Village and down to Nashville, Jack unravels long-forgotten facts that led to Katy's death. In doing so, he puts himself at mortal risk for the first time in his career.

Is it worth the effort? All this for an unknown singer and her songs? Though beaten and battered, Jack answers with a resounding "yes."

A Song for Katy Shayne is both a pulsing crime story and a heartfelt drama of personal resilience, very much in the style of Fusilli's The Price You Pay and his masterpiece, Narrows Gate. As Katy and her music come alive on the page, the story's ring of authenticity is heightened by anecdotes ripped from his lengthy career as the Wall Street Journal's Rock & Pop Critic. In A Song for Katy Shayne, violence and tenderness, corruption, and dedication to high values collide, explode, and drive toward a remarkable conclusion.