SJ12: LAY DOWN YOUR WEARY TUNE

 

Genre: Adult, Literary Fiction

Word Count: 104,000

 

Jack Wyeth, a struggling journalist, accepts a gig as a ghostwriter for a reclusive folk music icon. After discovering that the musician’s mind is failing, Jack scrambles to unlock the past before it’s too late.

 

When little Sammy Sweet fished a waterlogged wool cap out of the river, Trooper Mark Calvin, of the New York State Police, said it was “definitive” proof that Eli had drowned. Case closed. Time to get on with our lives. But three days later, in the hollow behind the paper mill, Dell Wheaton snagged Eli’s bruised leather satchel from the murmuring backwash. At least half a mile upstream from Eli’s last known location, Dell’s discovery was fodder for a new round of conspiracy theories, conjectures, and what-if scenarios. To further infuriate the investigators, the bag’s limp, deformed body wore a small bullet hole just above its clasp. Members of the trolling media, busybodies, and Galesville’s newfound tourists all voiced the same question from the same village sidewalks and gas pumps and bar stools: “What the hell happened to Eli Page?”

 

Many believed his disappearance was an elaborate hoax, a ploy to sell records. Eli, after all, was known for his trickery and sleight of hand almost as much as he was known for his music. Almost. Even Hal Holland, the editor of the local paper, who once swore up and down that he saw a body plummet over High Rock Falls, backpedaled when word about the cap spread through town. Now, he tells everyone that will listen that it was just the morning light breaking on the water. Me? I’m not sure what to believe.