Soundtrack For A Murder In Maine: A mystery short story featuring Cary Street, the rock star's private investigatorBook 1 of the Cary Street mystery series
2023 In this debut of a new mystery short story series, Cary Street decides to take a break from suffocating big city life to visit a friend in Millinocket, a small town tucked in the mountains of Maine. Life is going nowhere fast, and maybe a trip far from civilization will inspire change. While there some old friends come up to record their new album, a last ditch effort to revive a dying career.
What unravels is a train wreck of lies, secrets, money, anger, and eventually a loaded gun to fix things. Even the magic of rock'n'roll can't stop the rushing snowball. When things get worse one drunken night life stops making sense. When a reunion turns into a nightmare Cary finds himself as the private investigator to the rock stars. |
"I loved it. Reminds me of why I have always loved Sherlock Holmes."
- Bruce McLean, former City Councilman of Millinocket, jazz guitarist (Maine) "I love the story! I know all 4 of those mothers and roomed with them all over the years. I love your writing in this, much different than anything else of yours I have read. I start out looking for Humphrey Bogart and end up looking for Rick Rubin. ... The last 10 pages clip along like a runaway train heading for a washed out bridge. You wonder if you’re going to see anyone get out alive. It’s a great story, very real to anyone who has picked up a bit of gear and headed out into the dream. ... And not just for musicians, for everyone. ... The story is a zinger!" - Travis Haugen, novelist & 50 year touring blues-rock bassist with numerous bands including Guys With Wives (British Columbia, Canada) "Your eye for detail makes me feel like I'm there. ... I'm also a fan of your pop culture/music references. I like to do that with Jackie Puppet songs." - Brad Kleiman, guitarist/singer/songwriter solo and with Ray Bally Band, Jackie Puppet, Liquid Liquid's Dennis Young (New Jersey) "I have to say I love your writing." - Charles "Rev Mongoose" Canedo, guitarist/singer/songwriter of Tired Wings, Ambiatica (New York City) "I find your writing style brutally honest and look forward to learning more about your journey. For lack of a better phrase, your book is a real "page turner! ... I am no expert in literature, but it occurs to me that you have a talent for weaving both fact and fiction into a seamless tapestry. Sometimes I am not able to separate the two in your novel." - Albert Aprigliano, former Manhattan lounge pianist, music minister (New Jersey) "Make room on your bookshelf or in your kindle for a new genre bending series that connects the rhythm of rock'n'roll, with the thrill of a mystery & an intimate portrayal of band culture. Joy's work sings with an uncommon use of real language. He captures the way each member of the band thinks & the way they would play it on their instrument. What we learned from Joy's work is that truth has a 'ring' that we must listen for rather than decipher. Cary Street is good because he doesn't solve mysteries. He listens for the mystery to resolve itself the way a producer 'masters' an album. "I'm feeling this cinematically." - Summer Hill 7, actor, writing coach, creator of Poemedy literature (New Jersey) "I found it to have a compelling plot and characters! I had to get past the bad language, which is completely foreign to me, but I can understand why you have it in there to reflect the music scene (also a world completely foreign to me). In spite of all that, I wanted to keep reading to find out what the mystery was going to be, and I was rooting for all of the characters so I was sorry that Dean had to die and that Charlie killed him. I was intrigued by your conclusion that fiction detectives are invariably single. Interesting." - Thelma Follett, historian, dramaturge, co-founder of Little Swan on Bay Shakespeare Theater (Washington State) "You have a real gift for storytelling and creating rich and believable characters. It really showcased your creative nature, writing talents, and love of music. - Ananda Das, graphic artist, videographer (Colorado) "Really good story. It holds your interest, right from the very beginning. You make the characters seem like we know them. And, you write in such a way that you can't guess what's going to happen." - Claudia Joy, mother (Maine) |
Da Eyes: The Striptease2008
This is a literary tribute to the religious guru Adi Da Samraj. In a unique prose style - culling from the styles of Gertrude Stein, Adi Da Samraj and the Beat Generation - this is the story of a middle aged everyman, a Mr. Zero if there ever was one, whose materialistic and heathen existence comes face to face with the divine being, a man called Da. Using a unique poetic prose style of repetition and mirror prose imagery, this is a story of semi-biographical caliber, that anyone of spiritual leanings can relate to and pull something from. The story is loosely based on the biography of Adi Da Samraj, but it is not so much a story of him as the story of how the average man perceives life and what it does or does not offer.
|
"A remarkable piece of writing." - Paul Litchfield, Adi Da Samraj devotee
|