The first time we met Jason Davey, he was entertaining passengers aboard the Alaska cruise ship Star Sapphire, Eight ‘til Late in the TopDeck Lounge.
Then he came ashore, got a gig playing lead guitar at London’s Blue Devil jazz club, and gained a certain amount of notoriety tracking down missing musician Ben Quigley in the Canadian north.
Now Jason’s back again, this time investigating the theft of £10,000 from a dancer’s locker at a Soho gentlemen’s club.Jason initially considers the case unsolvable. But the victim, Holly Medford, owes a lot of money to London crime boss Arthur Braskey and, fearing for her life, has gone into hiding at a posh London hotel.
Jason’s investigation takes him from Cha-Cha’s and Satin & Silk (two Soho lapdancing clubs) to Moonlight Desires (an agency featuring high class escorts) and finally to a charity firewalking event, where he comes face to face with Braskey and discovers not everything Holly’s been telling him is the complete truth.
As he becomes increasingly drawn into the seamy underside of Soho, Jason tries to save Gracie, his band-mate’s 14-year-old runaway daughter, from Holly’s brother Radu, a ruthless pimp, while at the same time protecting Holly herself from a vengeful Braskey – nearly losing his life, and Gracie’s – in the process.
Targeted Age Group:: 18-70
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I'd written about my main character, Jason Davey, in a previous novel set on a cruise ship in Alaska (Cold Play). He was such fun to work with that I wanted to bring him back, this time as an amateur sleuth working in London.
I'd never written a full-on mystery before, even though I've been a huge fan of mysteries (print, tv and films) all of my life. Jason's working in a night club called the Blue Devil, which is in the heart of Soho, which is an area in transition – it used to have a very dodgy reputation, but it's currently in the process of reinventing itself. I wanted to tap into the last vestiges of the "red light" districts in the heart of Soho. I'd watched "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" on tv, and read the books that the series was based on, and I was intrigued by the life of someone who chose to make a living as an escort. I was also fascinated by the lives of women who chose to perform in "gentlemen's clubs"…and that intrigue and fascination made its way into the story as Jason is asked to investigate the theft of a considerable sum of money from an exotic dancer who is also working as an escort.
[Read more…] about Notes on a Missing G-String by Winona Kent