Boiled in Concrete

Martin Fender #3

by Jesse Sublett

Broke and living in an L.A. ghetto, bass-player Martin Fender jumps at the opportunity to record a song for five hundred dollars, but when his employer is killed, Fender must solve a mystery involving backwoods drug casualties.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 23, 1992

About the author

Jesse Sublett is an Austin, Texas musician, painter and author of 13 books, including crime fiction, true crime and history.

Reviews

[Jesse Sublett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my third published book in the Martin Fender series. I wrote these books quickly, digesting experiences I had during my experiences as a full time musician from the mid-1970s through the 1980s, and I was just starting out as an author then, but still playing music, full of energy. I've grown a lot as an author and musician since then, and reading these can be a little embarrassing. On the other hand, I'm kind of impressed with the energy I had then, and the tempo and commitment of these novels. One recurring character in this one and Tough Baby, named Vick Travis, the perverted thrift shop owner, was based on a very real character, but not from Austin. When I first heard about him and his little hobby (he would pay people, including down on their luck musicians, for the privilege of hurting them; he'd pay, for example, $50 to break their big toe with a hammer Stuff like that) I thought, wow, that is too weird to make up. I loved my life as a professional musician. You met a lot of interesting people. I still know a lot of musicians, and you know what, I still meet a lot of weird people, except most of them aren't musicians.

[Du4 · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a long, long time since I read this, but I remember loving the hell out of it when I did. Sublett writes about a Texas musician who finds himself embroiled in a strange lady's problems. What's so fun about this book is how good Sublett describes being on stage and playing music. His hero is a bass player, and the scenes occuring during gigs and shows I remember being very accurate to my own experiences performing on stage.