This book takes place within a wonderful atmosphere, pulsing with Harlem nightlife and a soundtrack of jazz and blues. The story cuts back and forth between the assassin and his lover and Devil’s world, including his Uncle Bean, a sort of low-level black Harlem mobster, who has an intricate romantic life. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he moved to London, England, where he continues the Barnett series, writes and directs films, and owns a music production company that focuses on jazz and rhythm-and-blues music like that described in Blood Red Blues.Īs the plot of this novel grows more complicated, so does Devil Barnett’s life. He has also written and produced stage plays and material for American network television. This is the first of several Devil Barnett novels that the author has written.

His techniques range from bribery to manipulation to blackmail. Relying on information supplied by a former partner still with the CIA, and teamed with a Harlem cop, Devil starts shaking the bushes, ready for any vermin that might come out. Before his investigation gets far, some Korean businessmen are murdered, apparently by the same assassin. When Barnett, who despises Robinson, declines, Robinson applies political pressure on a family member and Barnett reluctantly agrees to conduct an unofficial investigation.īarnett then travels the seamier dark alleys of Harlem, talking to two-bit hustlers, drug dealers, hookers, and crime lords, trying to find the identity of a hooker named Peter Pan, believed to be involved in the killings. Deke Robinson, a former FBI agent turned state legislator, asks Barnett to look into the crime. That room had been used as a brothel, and one of the victims was a Japanese diplomat. Not long after, somebody slaughters a group of people in the back room of another tavern, the Tease Me Club. After the murder of his father, Devil Barnett, a field agent for the CIA, returns home to Harlem to take over his father’s bar, the Be-Bop Tavern.

Blood Red Blues by Teddy Hayes