Seven new crime novels centered around musicians

Molly Odintz is the Senior Editor for CrimeReads and the editor of Austin Noir, forthcoming from Akashic Books. She grew up in Austin and worked as a bookseller at BookPeople, and recently returned to Central Texas after five years in NYC. She likes cats, crime novels, and coffee.

At CrimeReads she tagged "seven [2023] novels exploring the intersection of creativity, celebrity, and crime, with a variety of musical genre inspirations, including pop stars, punk rockers, classical musicians, metalheads, aging folk singers, and even a tribute to grunge," including:

Laura Hankin, The Daydreams

Laura Hankin’s set-up makes me really wish this had been a real TV show: what if the Monkees were an early aughts Disney show? Or what if Miley Cyrus had been just one part of a whole high school rock band? The Daydreams are the stars of a children’s network show about high school kids in a band, and while child actors are at first deeply enthused to be playing their roles, a disastrous last episode leaves everyone reeling, unsure of why things unraveled so abruptly. The answer is found in toxic Hollywood culture, the pressures placed on young actors, and the ways in which we fail the most vulnerable.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue