Third Time Charmed by Theresa Gauthier

The Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc

 The Vinyl Detective is a mystery series by author Andrew Cartmel. I’ve reviewed the first two in the series before, and now, finally, I’ve had a chance to read Victory Disc. 

Like the other two books, this one concerns self-proclaimed Vinyl Detective—and unnamed character—along with his girlfriend, their two cats and their friends. The Vinyl Detective is a moniker meant to indicate that he’ll scour shops and traders to find whatever rare recording someone will pay him to find. Somehow, these things always lead to murder or attempted murder or conspiracy. 

The one begins as they all do, innocently enough, as the detective is contacted about finding the nearly non-existent recordings of a World War II era British band called the The Flare Path Orchestra. The band, a British response to Glenn Miller’s Orchestra, had reached a certain popularity and notoriety during the war, but their recordings seem lost forever. 

When one of the cats accidentally discovers one and our protagonist writes about it in a blog, he’s contacted and hired to locate as many of the missing discs as possible.

Things go well enough at first—insofar as finding some recordings, but soon he uncovers things that someone doesn’t seem to want uncovered. There’s a history here of which there’d never been a hint. The protagonists find an unsavory story amidst murder, violence, deception, and so much more. As they speak to people about the recordings he hears again and again about a murder that took place decades earlier. More than one of the tellers of the tale is convinced that the man who hung for the crime didn’t actually kill the victim. When the victim’s granddaughter appears—in dramatic circumstances—our crew learns more than they could have imagined. The tale grows more complicated as they uncover bits and pieces, dodge attacks, another murder victim, and, of course, the missing music.

There are elements to the story I’d never guessed. Even the minor regular characters are given their moments to shine, and the cats themselves are always inspiring a humorous turn of phrase. 

Victory Disc is a quick read, as were the previous volumes in the series. I couldn’t put it down. Needing to know more I pushed through, but once I was finished, I wished I’d savored it a bit more. Cartmel’s ability to write dialogue—even a character’s inner dialogue—so realistic and so natural, is one of the reasons I love the series so much. It helps, I suppose, that I’ve collected vinyl myself—though with nowhere near the knowledge and preferences of these characters. 

If you’ve read the previous books in the series, don’t hesitate to pick up this one. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?