CRIMETIME PRESS™

Can a piece of music be cursed?

When a young marine biologist is found dead, seemingly of suicide, his father can't believe he took his own life and hires Scott Drayco to prove it was murder. But what of the strange song found with the young man's body—the same song linked to a piano sonata that led to a wave of suicides in Hungary in the 1930s?

As Drayco digs deeper, he finds even more unusual aspects of the case not easily explained: the victim’s “Gang of Five” friends and their interest in the Akashic Records; the victim’s missing cellphone; and the gun used by the victim mysteriously stolen from a friend’s car.

Drayco fears a tragic incident from his own past may be clouding his objectivity. After all, the facts point to suicide, case closed. But when Drayco starts suffering from depression himself after playing the sonata, can he really be sure of what’s real and what’s imagined?