What if the greatest American rock star of the sixties, drowned in his bathtub seventeen years ago, did not accidentally die of a drug overdose but was murdered? Now, a new murder in Beverly Hills leaves blues-playing police lieutenant Nicky Rachmaninoff haunted by what really happened. The provocative and murderously profitable world of California rock is the setting for Nostalgia Kills by Robert Westbrook, author of The Left-Handed Policeman.
After top video-jockey Jay Jeffries is found murdered and mutilated in his Beverly Hills mansion, Nicky Rachmaninoff finds himself in the middle of a bloody scandal. Jeffries was a member of the radical sixties rock group The Perceptions, whose lead singer Billy Lion died mysteriously in Rome at the height of his fame. Someone is out to kill all the surviving band members, now successful music promoters at The Rock Channel.
Nicky's investigation is complicated by his precocious young daughter, Tanya, and by an entanglement with his ex-wife, TV star Susan Merril. But he uncovers a trail of murder that leads him to music broadcast studios, a bordello, a Malibu beach house, a sailboat off the coast of Hawaii, and ultimately--in a scene of mayhem and potential murder--the Grammy Awards.
Everyone seems to want The Perceptions dead, including the band members themselves: lecherous guitarist Rick Elsmore, scheming businessman Bo Daniels, and the bitterly betrayed Donny Meredith. Others with stakes in the outcome include mobster Bushy di Sutro; Susan's husband, Frank Fee, a famous actor; nymphet VJ Unity Sphere; a punk rock music group called Public Telephone; groupie/housemaid Nancy Normal; and a mysterious, deadly voice that calls itself The Ghost of Rock and Roll.
The sixties meet the eighties in Nostalgia Kills, as sixties veteran Nicky Rachmaninoff races against time to rescue not just The Perceptions but rock and roll, past and present, in this colorful, funny, and gripping story of murder.
