Crimes in the Key of Murder

By Robert Jeschonek

Nobody cares who killed a down-on-his-luck piano player...except his brother, who happens to work for the crimefighting detective Sister Mayhem. Tearing up the underworld with her network of operatives--the Order of No Mercy--Sister Mayhem will stop at nothing to catch the killer. She's a master of disguise, a genius investigator, and a force of nature, but when the trail leads to a band of dirty-dealing musicians, she might have met her match. Lead singer Sheila Venus has genius, skills, and feminine wiles to rival Sister Mayhem's. Did her dark schemes lead to murder, or was the killing played in a different key echoing from a bloody, secret past? Sister Mayhem pulls out all the stops to solve the case and catch the killer, unless she becomes the next victim first. Don't miss this thrill-a-minute crime saga by award-winning storyteller Robert Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected crime fiction and mysteries that really pack a punch.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Jeschonek
• Release date: Nov 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781466038363

Book preview

Crimes In The Key Of Murder

CRIMES IN THE KEY OF MURDER

A CRIME STORY

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Busted Books

CONTENTS

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Crimes In The Key Of Murder

About the Author

Special Preview: The Masked Family

CRIMES IN THE KEY OF MURDER

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

http://bobscribe.com/

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Busted Books

An Imprint of Pie Press

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

ALSO BY ROBERT JESCHONEK

Death by Polka

Six Crime Stories Volume One

The First Detect-Eve

The Masked Family

The Other Waiter

Who Unkilled Johnny Murder?

CRIMES IN THE KEY OF MURDER

Just as Carver Moreau finished playing Caravan on the piano, someone hoisted him off his bench.  Someone, no doubt, who didn't realize they'd bitten off more than they could chew.

Because Carver was a world-class hand-to-hand fighter in the employ of none other than Sister Mayhem, bane of the underworld.

As powerful hands held Carver aloft, two men lunged from the shadows of the smoke-filled Kansas City dance hall.  Both men wore pink tuxedos with white carnations in the lapels--the trademark attire of the Dreamboats, the big band for which Carver had been auditioning.

Lashing out with his legs, Carver kicked one of the men--the bald one with the black goatee--in the chest, knocking him down.  The other man, however, landed a two-fisted blow in Carver's stomach.

Before the second man could hit him again, Carver pumped a knee into his side.  As the man cried out and spun away, Carver swung both legs back hard, cracking his Oxfords into the shins of whoever was holding him.

The strong hands gripping his upper arms let go, and Carver dropped to the floor.  Pivoting, he saw a man with shaggy blond hair and the brawn of a gorilla.

Before the gorilla-like goon could recover, Carver--trained in hand-to-hand combat by Sister Mayhem herself--belted him square in the jaw.  As the gorilla-man went down, Carver whirled, expecting an attack from another direction. Instead, he heard someone clapping beyond the spotlit stage.

Carver shaded his eyes from the spotlight with one caramel-brown hand.  Squinting at the shadowy tables, he saw that one woman was doing the clapping...and he recognized her.  As she rose from her seat, the folds of her red satin dress draped over her voluptuous body, highlighting every curve.  Her long red hair seemed to catch fire when she glided into the blazing spotlight.

Her name was Sheila Venus, and she was the leader of the Dreamboats.  She was the one Carver had been playing piano for when the three men had attacked him.

Congratulations, she said in a throaty, sultry voice.  You passed the audition.

Carver looked around at the three men scattered on the dirty dance hall floor.  That was part of the audition? I don't want another piano player who gets himself killed, said Sheila.

Carver nodded.  He knew all about the piano player who had gotten himself killed.  That man was the whole reason Carver was here, undercover, using his classical piano training to win a spot in a crooked big band.

That man, the dead piano player, had been