Rock of Ages

Book excerpt: Junior Bender, Los Angeles burglar and off-the-books detective to the felonious, is reminded that rock and roll will never die (no matter how fervently he wishes some of it would) when Hollywood's most dangerous geriatric mobster, Irwin Dressler, retains Junior's investigative services to solve a rather unharmonious problem. Four of Dressler's old gangster colleagues have put together a national tour of once-popular rock bands they own a piece of: three nights of concerts by guys (and a few gals) who were big shots back in the 1960s and 1970s, and who are now hoping for one more gasp of glory with this nostalgia exhibition. The Rock of Ages tour has proved itself to be anything but a love fest: plenty of the bandmates have been feuding for forty years, and—perhaps unsurprisingly—drugs and bad behavior have created health, wellness, and legal problems for the musicians and managers. Plus there have been two near-fatal accidents that might have been attempted murders. But they're not what Irwin Dressler is concerned about. It's that someone—one of his own colleagues—is using the tour as a front to steal Dressler's money. And that simply cannot be allowed. Now the tour has pulled into LA, and Junior has one weekend to figure out who's to blame—a weekend that begins with his tires being slashed, threatening notes left on his car, and a theatrical backdrop falling on a drummer during the truly terrible first set of the first concert. To make things worse, Junior is saddled for the weekend with his teenage daughter, Rina, who lately has been much, much too interested in how her father earns his living. Can Junior recover Dressler's money, prevent a murder, talk his daughter out of pursuing a life of crime, and somehow survive all that bad music?