A must for any Fanilow. This story follows a detective/lawyer who balances working his day job along with being the lead man of a Barry Manilow cover band that is set to play a gig that Barry may attend himself. You wonder constantly what could possibly happen to keep him from meeting the man himself and the conflicts just keep arising. ( )

At one point I thought I wouldn't finish this novel, because things about the story irritated me. But in the end I found that the characters were interesting enough to keep me coming back.

Schaffer's characters are an odd lot. I usually like odd, and I have no objection to a good dose of humor in my suspense/crime novels. In this case I'm not sure that the oddness always works. The main character is Gordon Seegerman, a public defender and a rather sad sack. Gordon is happy to be relegated to defend misdemeanor types because that is easy to do and doesn't demand too much of his energy or time. His real love is as the lead singer of a Barry Manilow cover band, Barry X and the Mandys.

Have I lost you? I wouldn't be surprised. I think I was able to finally accept this premise and move ahead because Gordon is actually likeable, and he's got some tough stuff to deal with. He's also a better guy than he intends to be, and that's compelling.

There's a complex set of mysteries here that start when a reformed alcoholic who works as an accountant for a big-name charitable organization is arrested for flashing a young girl. That misdemeanor then spirals out of control into something very different, and bodies begin to appear. Gordon gets pulled out of his sedate approach to his career and sucked into the big time.

The best I can say about this is that it makes me interested in reading more of Schaffer. I'm glad I stuck it out with Gordon, but my opinion about Barry Manilow hasn't changed, not one iota.

Oh and by the way: great cover art.