MOJO HAND

California disc-jockey (and former rock star) Kihn brings back Beau Young of the Stone Savages from Big Rock Beat (1998) The author’s recipe is simple: take Nan and Ivan Lyons’ deliciously droll mystery, Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (1976); replace cooks with black American bluesmen. Vincent Shives, an albino guitarist as yet unfledged by playing in public, goes to New Orleans, where an ancient black zombie woman for $5,000 sells him the Mojo Hand, a mummified, severed human appendage that seems not quite dead. Beau has dropped rock ‘n’ roll to recover from a coke habit and play the blues with legendary harpist Oakland Slim. Suddenly Slim’s buddies among the giants—Red Tunney, Art Spivey, and B. Bobby Bost—are being murdered, opened up like cans of tomato soup by some sort of claw. Yes, it’s the Mojo Hand, which climbs out of its shoebox while Vincent is sleeping and goes off to murder his rivals. Divorced Beau falls in with Annie Sweeney, owner/writer of Bluesworthy magazine, and begins his own investigation of the murders, drawing on his new friendship with a fan who happens to be an assistant medical examiner in San Francisco. Meanwhile, a man claiming to be long-dead blues colossus Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil 43 years ago, tries to establish his legal right to royalties from recordings of his music by the Crawling Kingsnakes and their big-lipped leader Rick Dagger (yes, the Stones and Mick). Since that group happens to be recording demos in Sausalito, why not have “Robert Johnson” prove his identity by playing with their lead guitarist, Heath Pritchard (Keith who?), who knows Robert Johnson’s every note? If he does prove out, what will Vincent and the Mojo Hand have to say about this new zombie on the block? No question, blues players and fans will dig these chords, which reverb with Kihn’s now familiar shimmer.