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Book Summary and Reviews of Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel

Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel

Written in Dead Wax

A Vinyl Detective Mystery

by Andrew Cartmel

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  • Published:
  • May 2016, 320 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A London record collector and rare record hunter becomes hunted himself when he's hired to track down the rarest jazz LP.

He is a record collector - a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the "Vinyl Detective" and some people take this more literally than others.

Like the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording - on behalf of an extremely wealthy (and rather sinister) shadowy client. 

Given that he's just about to run out of cat biscuits, this gets our hero's full attention. So begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all…

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. This charming mystery feels as companionable as a leisurely afternoon trawling the vintage shops with a good friend." - Kirkus

"Marvelously inventive and endlessly fascinating" - Publishers Weekly

"This one is all about mood (jaunty and clever, in swinging, four-four time) and frame story (jazz history mixed with geeky references to Ortofon Rohmann cartridges and Roksan Xerxes turntables). Vinyl fans, this one's for you." - Booklist

This information about Written in Dead Wax was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Andrew Cartmel

Andrew Cartmel is a novelist and screenwriter. His work for television includes Midsomer Murders and Torchwood, and a legendary stint as Script Editor on Doctor Who. He has also written plays for the London Fringe, toured as a stand-up comedian, and is currently co-writing with Ben Aaronovitch a series of comics based on the bestselling Rivers of London books. He lives in London.

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