Bill Moody – författare

After months of successful work in Europe, musician Evan Horne returns to settle in the San Francisco Bay area, where he makes inroads into the jazz scene. Life is good until he gets a phone call from a Los Angeles attorney. Evan’s old friend and former mentor, pianist Calvin Hughes, has died and left Evan all of his possessions.

When Evan begins to play through some of Calvin’s handwritten sheet music, he recognizes a song from the landmark Miles Davis recording Birth of the Cool and another from Kind of Blue. Evan is soon on a whirlwind journey across the country to confront his family. Was Calvin Hughes the uncredited composer of one or both of these tunes? Or was it simply Hughes’ transcriptions from the recordings? Just what was his mother’s relationship with Calvin Hughes? And how did jazz come into the equation?

San Francisco jazz pianist Evan Horne takes a gig in Los Angeles, where he’s offered his most unusual job yet. Movie megastar Ryan Stiles hires Evan to teach him to look like he’s playing piano for an upcoming role. Evan stays at Stiles’ lush Malibu home for the tutoring, but things suddenly go wrong for the arrogant, spoiled star.

Stiles’ adversarial relationship with the paparazzi explodes when a photographer is killed. Was it an accident, or is Stiles himself a suspect? Evan wants out, but Stiles’ manager entices him to stay by dangling the opportunity to score the film. Stiles is cleared, but when the film begins, another mysterious death occurs, and somebody is blackmailing the star.

With help from his FBI girlfriend, Andie Lawrence, and Lieutenant Danny Cooper, Evan launches his own investigation to help clear Stiles. But now, to further complicate things, a serial killer has escaped from prison—and it’s Gillian Sims, Evan’s old nemesis.