Tag Archives: Scott Drayco

Fiction, Reviews

‘Dies Irae,’ by B.V. Lawson

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I give pretty high marks to author B. V. Lawson for her Scott Drayco series, about a private eye who was once a concert pianist and an FBI agent, who also has synesthesia, the condition where people see colors in sounds. Lawson does a pretty good male character, and her stories are colorful and intriguing.

The third Scott Drayco book is Dies Irae. Unlike the first two books in the series, this one is not staged in the town of Cape Unity, on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, but in Scott’s home of Washington D.C. This time he is reunited with his old FBI partner, “Sarg” Sargosian. Scott took the fall for a mistake Sarg made on the job, resulting in his own dismissal from the Bureau. It saved Sarg’s career but ruined their friendship. Only now Sarg wants Scott’s help. A student at a prestigious local college, a musical prodigy who also had synesthesia, has been murdered. She’d received a mysterious, coded note beforehand. Sarg has reason to fear that his own daughter, a fellow student, might be the next victim.

There is a possible voodoo angle in the plot, and the story delves into religious questions. The author’s attitude seems to be pretty broadminded, except that Christian evangelicals consistently look bad.

As in the previous book, the author misuses the phrase “to beg the question.” And this time out, she adds the odd quotation, “et two, Brute.”

The Scott Drayco books aren’t bad, but I’m finding them philosophically uncongenial. I can’t deny, however, that the stories are pretty well done.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Requiem for Innocence,’ by B. V. Lawson

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Book Two of B. V. Lawson’s pretty good Scott Drayco mystery series is Requiem for Innocence. This story finds our hero, a former concert pianist who sees color patterns in sound, once again in Cape Unity, a struggling town on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay where he has inherited a crumbling opera house. He made good friends there in his last adventure.

A client has hired him to investigate a string of murders of disabled people in the Washington, D.C. area. When he hears of attacks on two people in wheelchairs in Cape Unity (one fatal, the other a near-miss), he thinks they might be connected. He drives there and checks in again at the bed and breakfast where he stayed previously. The survivor of the near-miss is a young girl born without legs, the daughter of a single mother. She is smart, and a talented painter. In the circle around her are a burn-scarred watch repairer and his misfit son, her best friend. There’s a local midwife with a mysterious source of income, an aristocrat running out of money, and an area crime lord. Scott has to sort through a tangle of lies and guilty secrets to finally uncover the killer and protect the girl. Meanwhile trying (not always successfully) to fight off the women who keep throwing themselves at him.

I quite enjoyed Requiem for Innocence. I dislike (of course) the female lay preacher who’s a main side-character, and the author misused the phrase, “beg the question” once, but the story was worth it. Only minor cautions for mature material. There is an abortion plot thread, but not in a way that offended me.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Played to Death,’ by B. V. Lawson

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Well, she caught me. I was taken in, I’ll admit it. As I’ve told you, I generally avoid woman authors – not because I consider them inferior, but because I so often find them uncongenial. But I bought a package of three Scott Drayco novels whose author, B. V. Lawson, turns out to be a woman. (The initials should have tipped me off. Fiction authors using initials – at least nowadays – are almost always women.)

Nevertheless, I liked Played to Death, the first book in the series, quite a lot. So sue me.

Our hero, Scott Drayco, is almost top-heavy with backstory. He was a musical prodigy and had a concert career, before an accident damaged one of his arms. He can use it, but it’s not up to playing in public anymore. He became a private investigator, and now he’s suffering trauma after failing to save lives in his last case. He also has chromesthesia, a condition that makes him see sounds as colors.

A legacy from a former client leaves him the owner of a decrepit opera house in the town of Cape Unity on Chesapeake Bay. The town was once fashionable, but is now a backwater; the beautiful building seems hardly worth refurbishing. When Scott goes inside to look the place over, he finds a corpse on the stage next to a piano – shot through the head, with the letter “G” carved into its chest.

The victim turns out to be a local character, a genealogy expert. Scott joins forces with the genial local sheriff, following lines of inquiry that lead back into the town’s past, and to a violent confrontation.

Played to Death was pretty good. The characters were eccentric and well-drawn, and the dialogue was interesting. My only real problem was with some comments expressing admiration for nihilistic philosophy. I’ll go on to the next book, and see whether this worsens.