Hang Down Your Head
Despite her best efforts to lead a peaceful life, murder, mystery and mayhem continue to follow reluctant sleuth Randy Craig. Maybe she shouldnt live in Edmonton. Or date a cop. Or work for the famous Folkways Collection library on the University of Alberta campus. Randy has just started the dream job of any banjo-playing folkie freelance writer, when the children of a deceased benefactresswhose generous donation funded her employmenttry to stop the bequest. David and Barbara Finster, the angry, anti-folk offspring go to great lengths to un-endear themselves to the Folkways Collection staff by storming in to the office and threatening to shut down the project. When one of them shows up dead, Randy finds herself a prime suspect with a motive and no alibi in sight. As bodies pile up, Randy is forced to distance herself from her police investigator boyfriend Steve, who is assigned to the case. Not helping her relationship is the arrival of an intensely sexy researcher from the Smithsonian Institute, with a penchant for wandering around his hotel room clothed in not much more than a towel. Summertime in the Festival City of Edmonton is off to a very hot start and stands to get even hotter.
- Whatever Randy finds for an occupation, it always revolves around the university or college world. Is this a valid position for her, or is this her Achilles heel proving she has not yet matured and engaged with the real world?
- Randy has been seen to “read” the real world through the filter of fiction and now through the elements of song. Is this necessarily a bad thing?
- The Smithsonian Folkways Collection and the U of A’s folkwaysAlive! project see commoner music – traditional, folk and blues – as being vitally worthy of curation and celebration. What is it about folk music that makes it worth all the trouble?
- Randy is attracted to Woody, obviously. What strings does he pluck that Steve hasn’t managed to? Is Randy right in her ultimate choice? Should there be romantic elements in a mystery novel?
- To read here, you would think that Edmonton is one long festival in the summertime – and you’d be right. Why do you think this burst of summer celebrations should erupt so far north?
- So much of this novel depends on having an alibi – do you ever wonder whether you should pay attention to having a ready back story?
- Is folk music really the music of the folk, or has it been eclipsed by some other genre.
- The series explores various nooks and crannies of academe. Since campuses are more like each other than the towns or cities where they are built, does something happening on campus make it feel more real, since it’s an actual place and tangible buildings or more ephemeral?
- Randy is considered a “gifted amateur” in the world of detective fiction. What do you think this term implies?
- Do you play an instrument? Do you think it gives you a different relationship with music than those who have no musical background?
Turnstone Press Ltd.
