Songbird
Private detective Jax Diamond has been trailing composer and playwright Sam Sanders to provide evidence for Sam’s wife that he’s been having an affair. When Sam fails to follow his usual routine, Jax jimmies the locks to Sam’s apartment and finds him dead. Though suspicious, the death doesn’t impress police as murder, and the coroner signs it off as the result of an underlying heart condition. But after learning of the death of an actress who worked with Sam at the Ambassador Theatre, Jax persists, gradually piecing together the details of a series of murders related to Songbird, the nickname for a rising star in the musical theater community, and the name of Sam’s manuscript which went missing after his death.
Songbird is the first in the Jax Diamond series by author Meath. Known for historical romances, westerns, and biographies of women who challenged their places in time, Meath takes Songbird readers to Sardi’s restaurant, Yankee Stadium, Coney Island, and jazz nightlife in the New York City of the Roaring Twenties.
Rather than a venture into the world of the noir, like other detective fiction set in that period, or a follow-the-clue whodunit, Songbird is an introduction to the attractive Jax, a man burdened by a troubled past; Ace, his black and tan German shepherd; and the police detectives and medical examiners he previously worked with. Here, he meets feisty and automotive-conscious Laura Graystone, the woman called Songbird and his romantic interest. Fast-paced, breezy, entertaining.