If you are anything like me you get a kick out of finding allusions to the music you love in the books you read...

F'rinstance, I loved "Cold Mountain" -C Frazier, and the use of the music in the book made it an even more pleasurable read.

Novel regular Alex Cross plays jazz piano and Alex Delaware plays guitar (and his SO is a luthier -- who, when we last left her, may have been selling out her designs to a Japanese manufacturer! horrors!)

Of course, there's always the "cringe factor" when the music is handled badly!

Anyway, I've come across two new ones in the last year;

The best book I "read" in 2002 was "Beach Music" -- Pat Conroy. The reason "read" is in quotes is because I listened to it as an unabridged book on tape -- which, in this case made it even better -- GREAT reader.

The book refers to Beach Music to which I was introduced in the '60's by my brother who went to University of South Carolina. For those of you who don't know, "Beach Music" is not Jan&Dean and the Beach Boys. It was a combination of R&B and whatever else kids could "Shag" (dance) to.

In the book Conroy also has the Red Clay Ramblers playing at party -- wish I coulda been there!

I highly recommend "Beach Music".

The other book is "Fatal", the latest medical suspense novel by Michael Palmer (better plots that Robin Cook -- often better character development as well). The main character is a fiddle-playing doctor. Not a great novel, but entertaining as junk novels go.