The Run Out Groove

The Vinyl Detective, Book 2

By: Andrew Cartmel

Narrated by: Finlay Robertson

Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

When a mint copy of the final album by Valerian - England's great lost rock band of the 1960s - surfaces, all hell breaks loose. Finding this record triggers a chain of events culminating in our hero learning the true fate of the singer of Valerian, who died under equivocal circumstances just after...or was it just before the abduction of her two-year-old son?

Along the way the Vinyl Detective finds out what happened to the missing child, and it wasn't what anyone expected - or wanted - to hear.

©2017 Andrew Cartmel (P)2017 W. F. Howes Ltd

Critic reviews

"A quirky mystery of violent death and rare records." ( The Sunday Times)

Great 2nd Installment

Really enjoyed this book they certainly picked up the pace in this second installment.Great story lots of twists, turns and quirky characters. A bit of a twist at the end which I did not see coming. Fantastic narrator does a great job. Looking forward to the next book .

Tired American Character Cliche's

Let me begin by explaining that I LOVE British, Scottish and Irish literature and have read through several authors and series. Although this is entertaining, Mr. Cartmel consistently falls into the Xenophobic and mildly insulting American stereotypes in both this and the first Vinyl Detective novel. His American characters are obnoxious, violent and rude- I guess what he thinks all Americans are like? I'll skip the rest of this series- it's not bad, but not good enough to suffer through more overused, tired stereotypes. Pity he didn't take more from his Doctor Who days and put in a little more thought and a little less of the casual banalities. Can't we all just get along?

Disappointed

(Does NOT stand alone)

After loving the first story, my expectations were high for this one, but sadly not met. Only a couple of likeable characters here - including the driver Clean Head, who figures in one scene, but is otherwise scarce. Tinkler came off as self-centered to the point of narcissism at times.

Basically, it's repeated run-ins with various creepy characters from the 60s who had interaction with Valerian and the group. I'd have a hard time believing anyone could guess the killer's identity (no, she did not commit suicide), while the resolution of her child was a clever idea in theory that struck me as over-the-top on the page.

Audio narration was okay with one glaring exception! Their client had left England for America in his twenties back in the day. The narrator has given him a very heavy nasal American accent that one would not have picked up if not a native speaker; the longtime expats I've known have pretty much retained most of their original accent, perhaps softened to a Mid-Atlantic type after some decades, but they don't have anywhere near such (stereotypical) native American speech.