by Avram Lavinsky

When I read my advance copy of Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith, edited by Michael Bracken, and published through White City Press, it dawned on me that we may be living in the golden age of music-inspired mystery short stories.

No, music-inspired crime works will not grace the silver screen with leading roles drawn from Hollywood immortals. No, these works will not spawn bidding wars between the publishing industry’s consolidated superpowers. No, they will not garner huge advances or show up in airport bookstores.

But they are beautiful. They represent an evolving art form, a crossroad between music and literature. There’s something inherently intriguing about these intersections. We find ideas more often flowing from literature to music. Robert Plant snuck J. R. R. Tolkien references into Led Zepelin tunes. Iron Maiden, the Allan Parsons Project, and many others based songs on the works of Poe. Anthrax and the Ramones based songs on novels by Stephen King.

Enduring and prolific, Aerosmith is a great choice for literary inspiration. While they always retain their bluesey, hard-rock identity, their songbook includes iconic anthems and hit ballads as well. Perhaps most importantly, so many of their hits are incredibly infectious. Nothing is more tempting to expand upon than what is already stuck in the author’s head.

It’s no wonder that Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith attracted such a talented lineup of contributors: authors who have won or been nominated for the industry’s highest awards, who have been included in best-of anthologies, who have long resumes that reflect staggering creative output. Of course, it helped that editor Michael Bracken himself has accomplished all these things. In fact, if I had to pick a Mount Rushmore of living short crime fiction authors, I would pick three involved in this project: Michael, of course, John M. Floyd with his one thousand published stories and five Derringer awards, and the phenomenal Joseph S. Walker with his three consecutive appearances in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

As the musicians say though, you’re only as good as your present gig. And, not surprisingly, Floyd and Walker contributed wonderful stories to this anthology.

Walker wrote the title track, if you will, “Janie’s Got a Gun.” With the first sentences, he plunges the reader into a high-stakes scene of murder and political intrigue, drawing heavily but never too heavily from the song’s lyrics and its emotional pitch.

John M. Floyd took on the rock ballad, “Hole in My Soul.” He produced a riveting story, memorable, and with a deep emotional connection to the song.

In fact, the quality of work throughout the anthology is excellent, with memorable stories and fun connections to the music. Whether you are among the Aerosmith faithful or a casual fan or just a reader who enjoys well-crafted crime fiction, I sincerely hope you concur.

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

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A recovering musician with one gold record on his living room wall and countless unsold records in his attic, Avram Lavinsky has been shortlisted for the Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize, the Al Blanchard Award for New England’s best crime story, and twice for the Killer Nashville Claymore Award. His crime fiction has appeared in Best New England Crime Stories, The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, and numerous other publications. He’s also earned starred reviews from the nation’s toughest critics–– his three teenage sons––although not often.

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