Alan Austin

The Adagio: a Mystery Alan Austin

Jack Duncan likes women-even married ones. An amateur actor in 1960s Omaha, Nebraska, he's started a steamy affair with his married costar, Louise Thompson. But when her husband discovers them in flagrante dilecto, Robert Thompson takes a peculiar revenge on Duncan, giving him his prized recording of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. While listening to the record, Duncan is disconcerted by a scream he hears embedded in the climactic chord. And when he discovers the bodies of Louise and Robert, he knows instantly that their murders and the eerie recording must somehow be connected. Duncan is suspected of killing the couple and becomes both the pursued and pursuer as he flees to New York City, beginning a hellish four-year mission to discover the source of the scream. He hides among derelicts near Shea Stadium, prowls Carnegie Hall where the Adagio was recorded, and learns of a strange, reclusive man who once lived in Carnegie's tower. Hunted by the law and his own past, Duncan has one chance to prove his innocence-if only he can stop the scream from echoing in his brain. Lush with the language and attitude of the 1960s and 1970s, The Adagio is a gritty, hardboiled detective novel that will haunt you long after the last page is turned.