Twisting the Rope

A strange book. It's got a bit of the fantastical about it, with hints of supernatural power about Long (I believe the first book established this firmly) and others showing a touch of the pyschic. There's also some fairly obvious psychic influence at the mysterious child Jude. Despite that, it's set in the world pretty much as we know it; I couldn't work out to what extent New Agey stuff was supposed to be established reality, or whether it's just basically our world. I enjoyed the characters and the style, and the mystery that was growing up. I've got to say, though, the ending didn't do as much for me. MacAvoy layers lots of revelations, as well as a string of lies, making this shift a bit suddenly from a sort of supernatural story show more to an Agatha Christie-style string of "Aha!"s. The actual solution was a bit convoluted, and involved the reader (and all the characters) accepting some degree of pyschic influence from Jude, but that whole side of things was a bit vague. That made it hard for me to follow their shrugging acceptance that one of them was (basically) a murderer. show less

A lovely, not long, musical murder mystery with subtle fantasy elements, set among a group of (mostly American) Irish musicians as their tour winds down in Santa Cruz, California. The many tensions and motives among the group members keep the mysteries (who will die? at whose hand?) simmering well to the end of the book.

As a musician myself, I enjoyed the descriptions of jamming and concertizing, and the realistic joys and self-doubts of the players.

This could be considered a sequel to MacAvoy's debut novel, Tea With The Black Dragon, having the two central characters in common.

(I'm in the process of rereading all of MacAvoy's works, the earliest of which I ran into 20+ years ago, and enjoying it greatly.)

Another tale of Mayland Long that stands up to rereading. A Celtic style band on tour is racked by interpersonal tensions that worsen when they come to Santa Cruz. A strange force seems to be a work and one band member is killed, leaving the others as suspects.

If you haven't read Tea with the Black Dragon, read that instead. If you want another taste of Mayland Long, then this book is for you. It isn't top-drawer MacAvoy, but even an average book from her is a delight to read.

The story starts five years after the end of "Tea with the Black Dragon". Martha Macnamara and Mayland Long are approaching the end of a folk music tour of the US, with Mayland acting as tour manager for Martha's band.

At the start of the story I could well understand why Elizabeth Macnamara had always found her mother's friends so annoying, since the other musicians are a motley crew. However the story soon develops into a mystery concerning the sudden death of a musician and the strange behaviour of Martha's three-year-old grand-daughter Marty, who is travelling with the group while her parents do some building work at home.

Martha Macnamara and Mayland Long stumble into a magical, musical mystery when they become involved with a murde

Sequel to Tea With the Black Dragon. Very good follow-up to an excellent fantasy book though this one has a lot less of the fantasy component.