M.R. Kayser

A COLD CASE MURDER MYSTERY

(A Deke Jones Romp)

In 1954 budding blues virtuoso Waymon "Tornado" Fuller is executed for the murder of a North Carolina woman. In 1994 nomadic hot-rodder, moonlighting private investigator and blues aficionado Deke Jones stumbles upon Fuller's guitar, triggering a mudslide of buried truths. Fuller's innocence is one revelation. Another is "Shadow Hand Blues"--the last song he recorded, which Jones has never heard of.

An impromptu search for the studio where the recording session took place leads Jones to a small hippie town seemingly still enjoying the Summer of Love, where the psychodelic atmosphere turns from surreal to hostile when he begins asking questions.

Vintage Fender Telecaster in one hand, steering wheel of his radical Cyclone Spoiler II in the other, Deke Jones launches a one-man crusade to exonerate the infamous musician and find the obscure recording. The blood trails are 40 years cold, but neither corrupt good ol' boy cops, sex industry sadists, nor fanatical pyramid-schemers can throw Deacon Jones off this case.

This investigative pilgrimage propels Jones right into the bloodstained fingers of a clandestine power elite Tornado Fuller called the Shadow Hand.