PLAYED TO DEATH
(Scott Drayco Series #1)

Winner, Best Mystery in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards; a Featured Self-E Selection by Library Journal​; and a finalist for the Shamus Awards for Best Indie P.I. Novel, Southwest Writers Novel MS Contest, and Maryland Writers Association Awards

 

 

The last thing he needed was to inherit a rundown opera house. And now, he’s just found a body inside.

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Scott Drayco isn’t a typical private detective:  a former concert pianist with the rare condition of synesthesia—where he “sees” sounds as colors, shapes, and textures—he turned to a career in law enforcement after a violent attack put an end to his music dreams.

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When Drayco inherits a rundown Opera House in a Virginia seaside town following a particularly brutal case, he just wants to arrange a quick sale for the unwanted “gift” while nursing his battered soul in a peaceful setting near the shore.

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Those hopes are shattered when a dead body turns up on the Opera House stage, a mysterious “G” carved into the man’s chest. With himself a suspect in the murder, Drayco is forced to dig into very old, and very dangerous, secrets to clear his name.

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Standing in his way are a wary sheriff, hostility over coastal development, and the seductive wife of a town councilman. But as Drayco digs deeper, it becomes increasingly apparent he’s running out of time to solve the unusually twisty mystery before tensions explode into more violence and he becomes the next victim.

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