Art Scott, audiophile and Emperor of DAPA-EM, posted this comment about last week’s FORGOTTEN BOOK, Fire Lake: “Whatever happened to Jonathan Valin? For one, he became increasingly engrossed in High End Audio, and became a lead reviewer for The Absolute Sound. Also, he self-published The RCA Bible, the definitive reference work for collectors of “Living Stereo” LPs (like me).” Valin used his love of records, especially those “Living Stereo” collectors’ items in another Harry Stoner novel, The Music Lovers, featuring a “Living Stereo” album on the book’s cover! In this one, Stoner is hired to find 35 vintage records that have been stolen. Valin explores the culture of obsessive/compulsive record collecting as part of the mystery. Once again, if you haven’t read Jonathan Valin’s Harry Stoner mysteries, you’re missing out on some great reading.
A Valin revival. Good.
I haven’t done two FORGOTTEN BOOKS by the same author in consecutive weeks before. But Valin and his work is worthy of the attention. Plus, I can’t remember any other mysteries that featured an album jacket on the book’s cover.
Now if only the vinyl nation can make itself visible enough to convince the consumer electronics folks to develop and release the scanning techology, already in prototype, that reads vinyl without dragging a needle along it.
George, it might just be my browser, but I think you might want to re-size te cover image of the book in this post…
Plenty of my students are into vinyl. But I suspect it will remain a fringe market, mostly for audiophiles. You bring up a nagging problem. I usually write my blog posts in WORDPRESS using FIREFOX. However, when viewed in Internet Explorer, the results can be drastically different. I’m working on the problem and I try to check my posts in both FIREFOX and Internet Explorer to resolve problems before they get to you. But sometimes, the gremlins just take over…
Valin has long been a favorite of mine, but I thought he’d faded away, like so many others. It would be great, though unlikely, if his books were brought back into print!
Other than being made available in KINDLE 2 format, I think the chances of Valin’s excellent novels being reprinted are zero.