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The Edge
High school student Cassandra, who works as a technician for a company making music videos, suspects that a near-fatal accident during a concert by the rock group The Edge is really an attempted murder.
- GenresYoung Adult
154 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
10 people want to read
About the author
Jeanne Betancourt
153 books95 followersWhen I was growing up I never thought of being an author. I was a terrible speller and didn't want to write any more than I had to. I wanted to be a tap dancer when I grew up. After a few years of teaching junior high and high school, I wrote my first novel. It was a surprise to discover that I liked making up stories and writing them down. I liked it so much that eventually I stopped teaching and became a fulltime writer.
Besides novels for children and young adults, I've also told stories by writing scripts for television and the movies.
I live on the top floor of a sixteen-story building near the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. From my apartment I have a view of Manhattan that includes the Empire State Building and the Plaza Hotel. In my free time I draw, paint, and read. I still love to dance.
Some people think that a writer's life is lonely. But when I'm writing a story I don't feel lonely because I am actively involved with lots of interesting people – the characters in my books. I love knowing that some day readers will get to know these characters, too. If you are one of my readers I hope you have as much enjoyment in reading my stories as I have writing them.
Besides novels for children and young adults, I've also told stories by writing scripts for television and the movies.
I live on the top floor of a sixteen-story building near the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. From my apartment I have a view of Manhattan that includes the Empire State Building and the Plaza Hotel. In my free time I draw, paint, and read. I still love to dance.
Some people think that a writer's life is lonely. But when I'm writing a story I don't feel lonely because I am actively involved with lots of interesting people – the characters in my books. I love knowing that some day readers will get to know these characters, too. If you are one of my readers I hope you have as much enjoyment in reading my stories as I have writing them.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 23, 2020
Quick coming of age read about a teen girl getting her dream job working for her favorite band, while being forced to navigate ego and sexism in the industry, AND also dealing with a traumatic personal event and her struggling relationship with her boyfriend. Kind of soapy, but not bad. I really liked the music video concept at the end. Very sweet.
May 9, 2024
Scrappy and smart, our protag Andra gets the chance of a lifetime to work as a Production Asst. at a Video Production company as part of her school’s work/study program. Lo and behold, she gets to participate in the making of the next music video for the hottest rock band around, The Edge 😎
Thing is, someone’s out to kill the lead singer and Andra’s got her suspicions. She goes full on Nancy Drew here to track down all the clues to figure out who it is before the killer strikes again!
A fun and fast read, with a cool glimpse inside what it might have been like to work at a Video Production company back in the 80s. There is a trigger warning I will add though, for
Lastly it wouldn’t be a Jeanne Betancourt book without some kind of existential note or bummer take on mortality 😅😅 Andra’s boyfriend has his work/study program at a retirement home and he had this to say: “ what I learned from my grandfather before he died is that you never grow old inside. Inside you’re young and fresh. It’s just that the body gives out.” 🥹🥹😭😭
Thing is, someone’s out to kill the lead singer and Andra’s got her suspicions. She goes full on Nancy Drew here to track down all the clues to figure out who it is before the killer strikes again!
A fun and fast read, with a cool glimpse inside what it might have been like to work at a Video Production company back in the 80s. There is a trigger warning I will add though, for
Lastly it wouldn’t be a Jeanne Betancourt book without some kind of existential note or bummer take on mortality 😅😅 Andra’s boyfriend has his work/study program at a retirement home and he had this to say: “ what I learned from my grandfather before he died is that you never grow old inside. Inside you’re young and fresh. It’s just that the body gives out.” 🥹🥹😭😭
June 29, 2025
Found on Thriftbooks for a decent price.
If a cover looks interesting and the back blurb is convincing enough, I will grab it when I see someone posting about the books in their collection on Facebook groups or what someone is reading on Goodreads.
Being a child of the 1980s (six when they were over to be exact) you talk about MTV or even in its heyday, VH1, I will be interested. Music videos and rock bands are enough visually to hold a child's attention and as you get older, you develop crushes on rock musicians.
This book, set in 1985, has the main character a junior about to be senior in high school. Her name is Cassandra Simpson, but she goes by Andra, and her favorite rock group is The Edge. The lead singer goes by the name of Razz and Andra thinks he is so cool, and I believe later it is confirmed he is like thirty years old.
I can already relate to her in liking older guys who are singers and guitarists.
Andra happens to have a boyfriend too, a very polite and clean-cut Midwestern transfer to New York named Tom Cole. She has dated before, but Andra is starting to think about more than just going around the bases with Tom. The only thing holding her back is past boys only wanting to get in her pants, but Tom says he can wait. That's perfectly fine...it's what the rock fantasies are for.
The two of them are in a work-study program where Tom is working at a sort of retirement/ assisted living facility for older people while Andra is working for P & C Video Productions for her six-week assignment. Wanting to be a director, Andra is more or less a "go-fer" and helping out the maintenance man and being a teenage secretary assistant. So far, it has been dog food and diaper commercials so not very glamorous.
Andra's second week, however, brings about big news.
Her boss, Mr. Peterson, tells her they are going to produce two music videos for The Edge. Andra is to come to the meeting with Peterson, Razz and his manager tomorrow and she can't wait to share the news with her best friend, Janice. Tom, more into the sounds of the 1960s, isn't as enthusiastic and her mother is just: "That's nice, dear."
The next day, Andra gets herself all dressed up with her hair and make-up and some sexy clothing to look at least twenty, twenty-one at the oldest. A rookie reporter from Rolling Stone is outside the building, having gotten word that The Edge will be at P&C working on two music videos for their newest singles. Andra acts coy with him as she enters the building.
Lead singer Ron "Razz" Taylor has shown up half an hour early with his manager Charlie and Andra can't believe this is the same man. He's wearing loafers, jeans, a yellow shirt and a blue sweater tied around his shoulders, almost the same preppy way that Tom does. Also showing up to the meeting is Jake O' Conor, drummer for The Edge. Andra notes to herself that he looks slick in his black silk shirt just as he does in the band's videos.
The band will be playing a concert at Madison Square Garden where they will get some performance footage before doing in studio shooting on a more concept driven video. Andra has some ideas of her own for the video of their song "Lover's Triangle" and both Razz and Jake consider it.
Impressed with Andra the most, however, is Jake as he asks Andra to go out with him for a drink.
Andra has a date with Tom, but Jake says he will too busy with rehearsing for any other night but this one, so Andra calls Tom to make up an excuse about working. Andra goes with Jake for some drinks and Chinese food, authentic in Chinatown, and then they drive out in his Convertible to go to his hotel room to see some concert footage from the BBC on a tour date the band did in England.
Sounds like a dream come true until Andra gets a glimpse at another side of Jake that isn't as charming and smooth. He doesn't like the band being "Razz's band" as Jake says he and others started it until they needed a new lead singer and guitarist. He found Ron Taylor cooking fries in a New Jersey diner at word from an acquaintance and helped turn him into "Razz" but since his uncle is a big entertainment lawyer, he's the face of The Edge.
That ego and finding herself in a room that's mostly a bed, Andra is basically almost raped by Jake, and he even slaps her when she screams. In the adjoining suite, Razz comes to Andra's rescue but isn't very pleased to find her there. Getting out of the room fast, Andra can hear Jake and Razz going at it when she hears Razz say that Jake is out of The Edge once the videos are shot and the tour is over.
As her third week begins, Andra hasn't heard from Tom all weekend after canceling their date on Friday. She hasn't told anyone the truth about what happened, and Andra had dreaded seeing both Jake and Razz at her job. Unfortunately, this upcoming Saturday is the Madison Square Garden concert, so Andra has to miss going to a party with Tom. He isn't happy and then Peterson gives Andra two tickets to the show, so she passes them to Janice which makes her even more depressed.
It all comes to a head when Andra hears a huge crash while backstage and hears complete silence from the band before screams of terror erupt from the crowd. Andra finds Razz unconscious on the stage with a bleeding head wound as girls are crying before an ambulance comes to take the fallen lead singer to the hospital. A chain holding the stage lights was broken on the grid, so the lighting director and his assistant go back and forth blaming the other, but Razz is still alive.
A concussion and a stay in the hospital for observation but it is noted that if he had not been leaning down to wave to the concert goers in the first row...the light would have killed him. The accident is caught on tape by the cameras and Peterson wants to use footage of it in the music video, so he has Andra help him as a production assistant to her disgust that he would be so happy about it.
Andra is supposed to show the tape to Razz along with the outline for the music video to the song "Winter", but she stops for some food and Jake is there to give her a bouquet of yellow roses to apologize. Andra bluntly tells him she isn't comfortable around him, and the yellow roses are given to Razz by a woman who turns out to be his wife and the mother to his four-year-old daughter when Andra shows up.
They saw the accident happen and Razz is sporting a bandage over his eye for the moment so Andra can't go through with saying that he should have them use the camera footage as part of the video like Peterson said. Andra has seen only footage from one camera, but she already has a feeling that Jake might have had something to do with the light fixture falling.
Andra needs help so she reaches out to Tom and tells him the whole truth with them getting back together after long weeks of silence. Andra can't go to the police or risk losing her job because Jake is trying his best to get his hands on the footage as well with his own delusions of stardom hanging by a thread. If he tried to get rid of Razz once, Andra is sure Jake will find another way to take him out of the limelight for good.
The Edge has a great plot for a TV movie mystery and with the use of rock and roll and MTV it is right up my alley. Andra is a pretty smart main character and likeable that Tom can't stay mad at her because he loves her so much and he proves to be quite likeable himself. Despite being jealous of Andra's crush on Razz, Tom treats him with respect when they bring their theory to him about Jake trying to eliminate him.
Razz Taylor is an interesting character in his own right since he is actually treating Andra with more of a fatherly respect and eventually sees that she isn't some starstruck groupie. He isn't a dumb rock star either as he knows that Jake has it out for him and even comes up with a pretty cool plan to expose it.
The way the book decides to end is pretty cool as well and it kind of makes me wish that someone could do some editing magic of their own and make it happen. I'd probably be as big of a Razz Taylor fan myself IRL and that is the power of not only rock and roll but good storytelling as well.
Highly recommend this one.
If a cover looks interesting and the back blurb is convincing enough, I will grab it when I see someone posting about the books in their collection on Facebook groups or what someone is reading on Goodreads.
Being a child of the 1980s (six when they were over to be exact) you talk about MTV or even in its heyday, VH1, I will be interested. Music videos and rock bands are enough visually to hold a child's attention and as you get older, you develop crushes on rock musicians.
This book, set in 1985, has the main character a junior about to be senior in high school. Her name is Cassandra Simpson, but she goes by Andra, and her favorite rock group is The Edge. The lead singer goes by the name of Razz and Andra thinks he is so cool, and I believe later it is confirmed he is like thirty years old.
I can already relate to her in liking older guys who are singers and guitarists.
Andra happens to have a boyfriend too, a very polite and clean-cut Midwestern transfer to New York named Tom Cole. She has dated before, but Andra is starting to think about more than just going around the bases with Tom. The only thing holding her back is past boys only wanting to get in her pants, but Tom says he can wait. That's perfectly fine...it's what the rock fantasies are for.
The two of them are in a work-study program where Tom is working at a sort of retirement/ assisted living facility for older people while Andra is working for P & C Video Productions for her six-week assignment. Wanting to be a director, Andra is more or less a "go-fer" and helping out the maintenance man and being a teenage secretary assistant. So far, it has been dog food and diaper commercials so not very glamorous.
Andra's second week, however, brings about big news.
Her boss, Mr. Peterson, tells her they are going to produce two music videos for The Edge. Andra is to come to the meeting with Peterson, Razz and his manager tomorrow and she can't wait to share the news with her best friend, Janice. Tom, more into the sounds of the 1960s, isn't as enthusiastic and her mother is just: "That's nice, dear."
The next day, Andra gets herself all dressed up with her hair and make-up and some sexy clothing to look at least twenty, twenty-one at the oldest. A rookie reporter from Rolling Stone is outside the building, having gotten word that The Edge will be at P&C working on two music videos for their newest singles. Andra acts coy with him as she enters the building.
Lead singer Ron "Razz" Taylor has shown up half an hour early with his manager Charlie and Andra can't believe this is the same man. He's wearing loafers, jeans, a yellow shirt and a blue sweater tied around his shoulders, almost the same preppy way that Tom does. Also showing up to the meeting is Jake O' Conor, drummer for The Edge. Andra notes to herself that he looks slick in his black silk shirt just as he does in the band's videos.
The band will be playing a concert at Madison Square Garden where they will get some performance footage before doing in studio shooting on a more concept driven video. Andra has some ideas of her own for the video of their song "Lover's Triangle" and both Razz and Jake consider it.
Impressed with Andra the most, however, is Jake as he asks Andra to go out with him for a drink.
Andra has a date with Tom, but Jake says he will too busy with rehearsing for any other night but this one, so Andra calls Tom to make up an excuse about working. Andra goes with Jake for some drinks and Chinese food, authentic in Chinatown, and then they drive out in his Convertible to go to his hotel room to see some concert footage from the BBC on a tour date the band did in England.
Sounds like a dream come true until Andra gets a glimpse at another side of Jake that isn't as charming and smooth. He doesn't like the band being "Razz's band" as Jake says he and others started it until they needed a new lead singer and guitarist. He found Ron Taylor cooking fries in a New Jersey diner at word from an acquaintance and helped turn him into "Razz" but since his uncle is a big entertainment lawyer, he's the face of The Edge.
That ego and finding herself in a room that's mostly a bed, Andra is basically almost raped by Jake, and he even slaps her when she screams. In the adjoining suite, Razz comes to Andra's rescue but isn't very pleased to find her there. Getting out of the room fast, Andra can hear Jake and Razz going at it when she hears Razz say that Jake is out of The Edge once the videos are shot and the tour is over.
As her third week begins, Andra hasn't heard from Tom all weekend after canceling their date on Friday. She hasn't told anyone the truth about what happened, and Andra had dreaded seeing both Jake and Razz at her job. Unfortunately, this upcoming Saturday is the Madison Square Garden concert, so Andra has to miss going to a party with Tom. He isn't happy and then Peterson gives Andra two tickets to the show, so she passes them to Janice which makes her even more depressed.
It all comes to a head when Andra hears a huge crash while backstage and hears complete silence from the band before screams of terror erupt from the crowd. Andra finds Razz unconscious on the stage with a bleeding head wound as girls are crying before an ambulance comes to take the fallen lead singer to the hospital. A chain holding the stage lights was broken on the grid, so the lighting director and his assistant go back and forth blaming the other, but Razz is still alive.
A concussion and a stay in the hospital for observation but it is noted that if he had not been leaning down to wave to the concert goers in the first row...the light would have killed him. The accident is caught on tape by the cameras and Peterson wants to use footage of it in the music video, so he has Andra help him as a production assistant to her disgust that he would be so happy about it.
Andra is supposed to show the tape to Razz along with the outline for the music video to the song "Winter", but she stops for some food and Jake is there to give her a bouquet of yellow roses to apologize. Andra bluntly tells him she isn't comfortable around him, and the yellow roses are given to Razz by a woman who turns out to be his wife and the mother to his four-year-old daughter when Andra shows up.
They saw the accident happen and Razz is sporting a bandage over his eye for the moment so Andra can't go through with saying that he should have them use the camera footage as part of the video like Peterson said. Andra has seen only footage from one camera, but she already has a feeling that Jake might have had something to do with the light fixture falling.
Andra needs help so she reaches out to Tom and tells him the whole truth with them getting back together after long weeks of silence. Andra can't go to the police or risk losing her job because Jake is trying his best to get his hands on the footage as well with his own delusions of stardom hanging by a thread. If he tried to get rid of Razz once, Andra is sure Jake will find another way to take him out of the limelight for good.
The Edge has a great plot for a TV movie mystery and with the use of rock and roll and MTV it is right up my alley. Andra is a pretty smart main character and likeable that Tom can't stay mad at her because he loves her so much and he proves to be quite likeable himself. Despite being jealous of Andra's crush on Razz, Tom treats him with respect when they bring their theory to him about Jake trying to eliminate him.
Razz Taylor is an interesting character in his own right since he is actually treating Andra with more of a fatherly respect and eventually sees that she isn't some starstruck groupie. He isn't a dumb rock star either as he knows that Jake has it out for him and even comes up with a pretty cool plan to expose it.
The way the book decides to end is pretty cool as well and it kind of makes me wish that someone could do some editing magic of their own and make it happen. I'd probably be as big of a Razz Taylor fan myself IRL and that is the power of not only rock and roll but good storytelling as well.
Highly recommend this one.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews