The bright lights and glamour of Nashville can be a heady experience, and this hold especially true for Cindy Blaskowitz, an aspiring singer/songwriter from Cabot Cove, Maine. The young girl has been sent to Music City through a scholarship program by the good people of Cabot Cove to explore a career in music.

But her luck turns bad when Cindy, now known as Cyndi Gabriel, is deceived by Roderick Marker, a conniving music publisher who promised her the moon. And when Marker is found murdered in his office, and the murder weapon was a trophy with Cindy's fingerprints all over it, she becomes a star in a way she never wanted -- as the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

As a member of the committee who sent Cindy to Nashville, Jessica Fletcher feels responsible for seeing that Cindy gets the help she needs, especially when Cindy's mother begs her to help her daughter. So Jessica heads to the home of country music and soon discovers that in addition to the lights, sounds and creativity, the city harbors a great deal of cheating, lying and swindling -- sounds like a country song to me!

In the thirty-third installment of the popular MURDER SHE WROTE series, NASHVILLE NOIR is a lively look at the amazing amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in a setting outside her normal residence in Maine. Author Donald Bain once again creates a fast-paced, well-written mystery that fans of the genre will adore. Bain adeptly captures the flavor of present-day Nashville (well, Nashville before the big flood!) and the country music industry of today. Country music isn't all wine and roses, it's a tough business and Bain brought that reality to his story.

Book Summary

Jessica Fletcher knows that creativity must be nurtured. So when a young lady from Cabot Cove shows promise as a singer and songwriter, Jessica and a local citizens committee send Cyndi on a scholarship trip to Nashville, Tennessee, where she can benefit from professional instruction.

Only weeks later, Cabot Cove is shocked to hear of the cold-blooded murder of a brash country music publisher-by the young talent Cyndi! And as Cyndi's mother begs Jessica to help her daughter, Jess heads to the country music capital of the world to help the wayward starlet.

Jessica finds that the murdered man was no country gentleman, with a list of ex-wives, cheated partners, swindled singers, and stolen songs that has Jessica swinging to-and-fro in the search for a killer. And if she can't uncover the culprit soon, Jessica knows that poor Cyndi will never get the chance for an encore...