Low End

Rating:
Summary: A witty contribution to the musician murder mystery
Review: Harry G. Pellegrin is a Bronx native. Being a child of the Sixties, Harry naturally majored in music, to obtain what he wryly refers to as a degree in "museum music." Music began for him at age five, and literature was not far behind. His third passion is motorcycles, and he has written pieces for music and chopper magazines. He presently lives in upstate New York.

Gary Morrissey is a studio/performing musician who is recovering from a bad marriage to an unsympathetic wife. When his best friend Marty asks him to do a little nosing around after a fellow musician is apparently shot point-blank by a couple of cops, Gary incorporates sleuthing into his music and beer schedule. He uncovers a nefarious plot that begins with a crazy cop named O'Brien, involves Mr. Unimportant, who happens to live on a high-priced yacht, and comes back to roost with Gary himself:

"I leaned against the doorframe and put on my best condescending face. 'I read the newspapers, too, you know. The way things have been going for my circle of acquaintances, I deduced that it must be her. It's reported that she's missing. Then the New Rochelle PD finds some bones. You couldn't have figured this out by your powers of deduction, so I assume your supervisors read the papers too.'

I thought I'd pushed him too hard that time. He turned red and stood on the welcome mat clenching his fists.

'You are going to go too far one day, and so help me, when that happens, I am going to take you down hard.'"

Low End is an original, as Harry Pellegrin combines elements of his own life to fabricate a darn good mystery. The plot is a sinuous, slithering thing that takes the reader into the bowels of NYC for a thrill ride involving cops, musicians, bikers, mysterious women, and the feds. Being a baby boomer, Pellegrin subscribes to the feds against the boomers theory, and his logic is unassailable. His characters are either sweet and honest, or bad to the bone. The action is nonstop, and in the end, the end justifies the means in a huge way. Low End is a witty contribution to the musician murder mystery. Well done!

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Drugs and Rock n' Roll -- Done before? Not like this!
Review: Here's an interesting little artifact of the 1980's. Low End at first seems to be just another preposterous government conspiracy theory. Given a chance, Pellegrin stretches his legs and the reader's imagination. You see, his conspiracy theory is really a glimpse into the paranoid dillusions of a bunch of low-life musicians whose brains have been scrambled by substance abuse. Once the reader gets this revelation, the story is plausible, believable, and damn real! The setting is Yonkers, New York, a down-on-its-luck has-been of a City just north of the Bronx border. It was once grand, but is now the realm of immigrants, artists, minorities and bikers. Crooked cops fill out the census. Gary Morrissey, the lead character and protaganist, is a guitar player who had once held onto the dreams of a career in classical music and a decent marriage, but has not seen either fulfilled. He is hurt, bleeding, and locked into his meager existence. He meets a nice girl, but not until a fellow musician is murdered, plunging Morrissey into a world of dope dealers, government agents, outlaw bikers, and onto the radar of the police. I won't give it away, but no one seems to be what they seem to be! This is a clever little tale of warped minds and tawdry lives told as only an insider could tell it. Good job, Mr. Pellegrin. How about a sequel?

Rating:
Summary: good read
Review: Low End is a very enjoyable read. It holds you captive until the end.