Five Deaths For Seven Songbirds by John Everson
Somebody is murdering the Songbirds...
A modern Giallo, Everson's homage to the stylish Italian mystery thrillers. Somebody is murdering the Songbirds. When Eve Springer arrives in Belgium to study with the world famous Prof. Ernest Von Klein at The Eyrie, an exclusive music conservatory, it’s the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. But that dream is soon to become a nightmare.
When the star of the school’s piano program is strangled with a piano wire, the only clue to the killer is a grainy picture of the victim during her final moments, mouth wide and screaming, posted on the girl’s own Facebook account, alongside a classic music video. What does it mean? Eve soon finds herself taking the girl’s place as the enclave’s star pupil, in line for a coveted scholarship and a new member of the famed jazz combo, the Songbirds.
When Eve is drugged and another Songbird murdered at a campus party, she suddenly finds herself on the list of suspects. Another picture is posted online of the victim in her final moments, and this time, Eve is sure the hands around the girl’s throat... are hers! Could she have killed the girl while under the influence of whatever someone had slipped in her drink? The police and others at the Eyrie are suspicious; the murders began when she arrived. Her new boyfriend Richard insists that she could not be the killer. But who would want the Songbirds dead? One of the other Songbirds, like Gianna, the snarky sax player who seems to hate everyone? Or Philip, the creepy building caretaker and occasional night watchman? Or could it be Prof. Von Klein himself, who seems very handy with a camera and has a secret locked room behind his office where the light always seems to be on after dark?
Whoever it is, Eve knows she needs to figure it out. Because when a dead canary is left as a bloody message on the keys of her piano, she knows her own life may be in deadly danger.
About the author
John Everson is a former newspaper reporter, a staunch advocate for the culinary joys of the jalapeno and an unabashed fan of 1970s European horror, giallo and poliziotteschi cinema. He is also the Bram Stoker Award- winning author of twelve novels, including his latest New Orleans occult thriller, Voodoo Heart and The House by The Cemetery, a novel that takes place at a real haunted cemetery – Bachelor's Grove – near where he grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago. His first novel, Covenant, was a winner of the prestigious Bram Stoker Award, and his sixth, Night Where, was a finalist for the award. Both dealt with demonic and erotic horror themes.
His novels have been translated into Polish, German, Czech, Turkish and French. Praised by Booklist, Cemetery Dance and Hellnotes; Kirkus Reviews called his work ‘hard to put down’, while author Edward Lee said, ‘Everson is a MASTER of the hardcore; he's the rare kind of writer who's so good you can't proceed with your day until the book is finished.’
Over the past 25 years, Everson has also published four collections of horror fiction; his short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five magazines and anthologies. He has written licensed tie-in stories for The Green Hornet and Kolchak The Night Stalker and novelettes for The Vampire Diaries and Jonathan Maberry's V-Wars universe. V-Wars was turned into a 10-episode NetFlix series in 2019 that included two of Everson's characters, Danika and Mila Dubov. For more on his obsession with jalapenos and cult cinema, as well as on his fiction, art and music, visit www.johneverson.com.
Review
‘Five Deaths For Seven Songbirds’ is a dark thriller, with an atmospheric setting, a foreboding style of writing and hooked me right from the start! I thoroughly enjoyed all the jazz references and went on a Spotify journey whilst reading this novel. Like a good piece of musical composition it had its main theme throughout but came with up and down tempos and built to a high octane crescendo at it's fulfilment. It was thoroughly entertaining.
I came into this book blind - as in the case I didn’t know anything about the term ‘giallo’. A lot of the reviews of ‘Five Deaths’ mention this term and reference the film they believe this novel is based upon. So I did a lot of googling and found that the wiki page was actually very informative so I will drop the link here;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giallo
What I discovered is that the idea of this regional genre felt more accessible when I realised that the original books were translations of authors from the golden age of crime like Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Edgar Allen Poe etc. As an avid vintage crime fan this began to excite me as a concept a lot more! Obviously, it has been developed by the Italians during that period and then moved into film but it meant I understood the combination of a detection type story along with the Hitchcock type visuals and slasher movie feel of the action.
The only criticism is that I felt the characters could have shown a bit more empathy and awareness of their situation. There is no way I would have been able to go about my normal daily existence knowing that so many people were being murdered in such close proximity. Apart from that I enjoyed all the characters personalities, especially that of the protagonist Eve. I can see how she reflects the traditional giallo themes of a foreigner being placed into a unique environment and having to deal with the murders. Plus, the influence of the detection side of the golden age crime was also prevalent in her story as she tries to work out who the killer is herself! Now, I did manage to pick up on the clues on who the killer was but then I am a huge vintage crime reader - my occupation is even selling these books - so it's not a reflection of the narrative being weak! Because it is not! I found there were a lot of ideas and strands emerging as the story progressed, there were red herrings galore and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing and to grip the reader! I flew through this in a day and loved it!
I adore the cover of this novel but then I love the hark back to retro covers with the styling of it. Plus, the original ‘giallo’ covers were always yellow, the term ‘giallo’ actually means yellow in Italian! So whoever, designed this cover well done! It is superb.
This was a great read and I learned something new as well! Always a bonus. I really recommend this one.
