Flip Your Wig

by Roy Chaney

Overview

If you're going to be murdered in San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

 

San Francisco. August 1966. The Beatles haven't arrived yet to play their show at Candlestick Park, but Inspectors Henry Nash and Ross Belcher of the San Francisco Police Department's Homicide Detail already have their hands full with Beatlemania, or Beatle psychosis. Flip Your Wig tells the story of Inspectors Nash and Belcher as they attempt to unravel the chain of violent deaths that begins with a young musician found dead in a Mission District flophouse, a Beatle-themed Halloween mask stuck to his face with dried blood. When a bloody skirmish in Golden Gate Park threatens to shut the fog-bound city down, Inspectors Nash and Belcher find themselves up to their metaphorical Beatle wigs in murder.

 

Flip Your Wig is a story of people living in prisons of their own design, and of escapes that sometimes fail. It is a story told through the chiaroscuro lens of the noir novel, and yet Flip Your Wig displays the robust creative spirit that made the Sixties counterculture interesting in the first place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781737540625
Publisher:	Roy Chaney
Publication date:	07/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	362
File size:	724 KB

About the Author

Roy Chaney's first novel, The Ragged End of Nowhere, won the Tony Hillerman Prize for best debut mystery set in the American Southwest. He has worked as a military journalist, photographer, newspaper editor, investigator, and auditor. Chaney is a member of Mystery Writers of America.

Editorial Reviews

07/11/2022

Hardboiled San Francisco detectives of an earlier era come up against the counterculture in this ‘60s-set procedural that's both gritty and amusing. Inspectors Belcher and Nash investigate a bizarrely murdered man as the Beatles are about to arrive in town. Investigations eventually lead to a seedy club, the Kimono à Go-Go, whose owner is the eccentric Jasper Rollo. Journalist Tina Gone knew the dead man, Danilo Gomez, whose band was going to be an opening act for the moptops—and Rollo might be bootlegging Beatles recordings. And even as the police get deeper into the confusing 1960s milieu, a tragedy from World War II begins to play out.

Chaney, who has worked as a journalist, does a marvelous job of turning his reporter's eye onto a changing time: a witness tries to explain who the Beatles are to the inspectors and suggests the officers read the fan magazines. “The Chief canceled our subscriptions,” said Belcher. Chaney reveals a gift for sharp descriptions, summarizing Malibu as the place where the Hollywood elite go for "naughty weekends, booze and pill-popping and free love" as a "respite from weekdays of booze and pill-popping and free love." The story encompasses many twists, and some of the subplots don't always connect neatly, but the profile of San Francisco in a fractious era always comes through with persuasive clarity.

Among the best of the sharply defined side characters is Gone, who tried to write a Kerouac-like novel on the "dharma spectrum." Her talk both confuses and entices Nash, who begins falling for her in a poignant romance. Nash himself also grows, finding himself increasingly torn between his role as a policeman and the changes roiling his city. Although the book is not about the Beatles, their spirits hover over the Bay as harbingers of change, though Chaney still finds room in the fog for the older spirits of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade.

Takeaway: Hardboiled detectives face murder and an ascendent counterculture on the eve of a Beatles concert.

Great for fans of: San Francisco Noir, John Lescroart.

Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A- Illustrations: N/A Editing: A- Marketing copy: A-

BookLife Reviews

2022-06-17
In this 1960s-set thriller, a series of murders unfolds before an upcoming Beatles concert in San Francisco.

With Beatlemania taking over the world, the English rock band has a concert lined up in California. San Franciscans are in a frenzy, though some protest the group for John Lennon’s assertion that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. Inspectors Henry Nash and Ross Belcher have other priorities, namely the bloody body lying on an apartment couch. The victim, Danny Gomez, was the “axeman” for a rock act set to open for the Beatles. The investigation leads the inspectors to a handful of musicians who steal songs and bootleg records. The pair moreover question offbeat locals, such as hippies dropping LSD, which, in ’66, is still legal. But things quickly turn dangerous, as someone fires shots at Nash during an interview, and a few people the inspectors are looking for or have spoken with turn up dead. Closing this thorny case won’t be easy, especially as cops anticipate a riot during the “Beatles Go Home” dance concert—on the same night that the British rock stars are performing. Chaney masterfully incorporates the real-world setting into the tale. Racial unrest, for one, is palpable, from the Black community protests against poverty and police harassment to residual World War II–fueled hatred of Japanese people. This provides the backdrop for a noirish detective story complete with copious deception and dishy one-liners: “Pull my other leg, it’s got bells on,” Belcher tells a man spinning tales. Along with a few genuinely unexpected deaths, memorable scenes include a rock-inspired assault. The inspectors fight off a suspect wielding a plugged-in guitar, as the amplifier belts “electric screams.” Nash, though not the most likable hero, faces an unusual hurdle, as his senses-blending synesthesia sometimes proves a hindrance. He guides the increasingly convoluted plot to a final-act exposition that, while dizzying, effectively wraps up the crime-riddled narrative.

A historically rich mystery with a delectable noir touch.

Kirkus Reviews