Book burble: If you don’t tell your story, someone else might tell it for you. And they just might tell it wrong…

1940. In the aftermath of the fall of Paris, Hieronymus Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, is arrested in a café and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. A German citizen. And he is black.

Fifty years later, Sid – Hiero’s bandmate and the only witness that day – is going back to berlin, where the first met. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there’s more to the journey when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero’s fate was settled.

‘Compelling, personal and authentic’ Observer
‘Ingenious’ Daily Telegraph
‘Timeless’ Daily Mail

HALF BLOOD BLUES – ESI EDUGYAN (2011) | ISBN: 9781846687761 | Publisher: Serpents Tail, an imprint of Profile Books

Half Blood Blues is heading off into the post in a tic I have not read it but have danced fingertips over the text and by chance come across some key moments which indicate this has depth, verve and punch. Notably furnished with fine descriptive writing the people described are deeply understood which is a pleasing state of affairs and leaves me keen as mustard to offer this copy in a late birthday parcel to ‘T’ who I think will appreciate the jazz and WW II history elements of this. I’ll be wrapping it up in a wee while, once fitted it’s with BookCrossing labels.
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Now listed as ‘Travelling’, because this will be posted later today in one of my rather late BIRTHDAY BOOKCROSSING parcels!

UPDATE - WED 29 AUG 2018: (((A P O L I G I E S))) organisational hic-cups meant alteration to my posting schedule. In the end the total number of late BIRTHDAY BOOKCROSSING parcels totalled five, each under 2 kg’s in weight. These all entered the Postal system last thing today and will be picked up and processed on Thursday 30 August.

Arrived in Somerset as part of Mr Flutterbies9's bumper birthday set of packages.

This is a new author for him but with tbr having just been added to in spectacular fashion, I'm not sure how long he will take to get around to it! You are correct about the jazz and WW11 interests though so we will see how long this stays on tbr.

This book has been read by us both, so 2 readers from this house.

Mr Flutterbies9 thought he really enjoyed the interactions between the main characters using "jazz talk". Liked the contrast between how things happened during the war years and how this reflected on the relationship in later years. The story did get across how when musicians play together, they can create something “in the moment” that may never be repeated again. The description of how French society at the time of the threat of German occupation started to disintegrate was very graphic.

Although I was confused at first by the “jazz talk” I soon settled into it and picked up what was meant. I felt that female characters were weak in the narrative (even Delihah came across half hearted and mysterious somehow) but the band themselves and the friendship between Chip and Sid (such very different characters) was particularly strong. The journeys and interaction between the band members during the war years in Germany and then France and the journey undertaken in later years to meet up (Chip, Sid and Hieronymus) and the interaction between the three remaining members at that time was well described and gave the feeling of seeing it all from a man’s viewpoint so that I did not realise until late through the book that it was a female author. To my mind, it does not matter that this was written about a jazz band, it could equally as well have been members of a dance band, but it does delve neatly into the world of the musicians and their jealousies, rival musicianships and ‘special’ feeling of working well together. The story for me was essentially all about the band members, their interactions and how they coped (or did not cope) with events as they unfolded during the war years and later on the meet up journey.

Mr Flutterbies9 took this with him to meet a friend.

It turned out that Mr Flutterbies9's friend had also read this book.

It was left in the cafe at Bishops Palace for an interested party and hopefully will be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Happy travels little book.