While my guitar gently weeps

By Deborah Grabien

Subjects: Rock guitarists, music, multiple sclerosis, Bay Area, mystery

Description: The second JP Kinkaid Mystery chronicle. While My Guitar Gently Weeps opens with Blacklight guitarist JP Kinkaid at home in San Francisco, and engaged to his long-time lover, Bree Godwin. Blacklight's tour has been rough on JP; a heart attack in Boston and a significant ramp-up of his multiple sclerosis have left him more physically fragile than usual. With the tour over, JP is relaxing by sitting in as second guitarist for a new CD by his longtime local friends, the Bombardiers. The Bombardiers are breaking in a new frontman, singer-guitarist Vinny Fabiano. Self-absorbed and abrasive, Vinny is new to the Bay Area music scene; all anyone seems to really know about him is that he has some very expensive instruments, and no obvious source of income to pay for them. A few weeks into the sessions, Vinny is found dead in the Bombardiers' San Francisco rehearsal space, smashed over the head with a custom guitar. The murder leaves the Bombardiers - already in hot water with their record label - without a singer or a regular guitar player. JP, calling in a favour, asks Blacklight's legendary frontman, Malcolm "Mac" Sharpe, to step in and sub for Vinny. But Vinny's cousin and guitar tech is found murdered in Marin County, and Vinny's most valuable guitar - a $75,000 custom Zemaitis pearl-top - has disappeared.