The Vinyl Detective – The Run-Out Groove by Andrew Cartmel

The Vinyl Detective is back! Following on from book one (Written in Dead Wax) and for those new to this series The Vinyl Detective likes to ‘find’ long lost records on vinyl (remember those). But along the way he ends solving a crime or two and gets into some sticky situations. Now author and screenwriter Andrew Cartmel returns with The Run-Out Groove. (Titan Books).

In the second book we see The Vinyl Detective finding a rare album by the 1960’s rock band “Valerian” in a charity shop, this starts a chain of events which our intrepid ‘detective’ can solve with a little help from his friends and not forgetting the cats.

This time around he starts to look into the tragic singer and her son who disappeared and the feuding family members that have not come to terms with the singer’s death all those years ago a case not resolved never gives closure to those left behind. But someone is out to make sure that they never get to the truth as to what really happened. I really enjoyed the Vinyl Detective and his girlfriend Nevada and together they set about trying to solve the case, prepare for all sorts of shenanigans and the story is light and amusing at times and if you enjoy a pleasant detective story set to a backdrop of a maze of London streets, then this is for you. There is enough in the story with plenty of twists and turns and the odd blind alley to keep you entertained. This is really different to the usual detective stories and I found I was really hooked on the story. The settings are so well described that I felt I was almost there with them as they set about trying to solve the mystery. A wonderfully crafted Mystery.

Thank you to Lydia Gittins for the advanced review copy.

The Vinyl Detective – The Run-Out Groove by Andrew Cartmel is published by Titan Books and is now available through Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookshops.