Book Description:
What if there were a white woman at the time of Elvis s breakthrough with a black voice and style, a Janis Joplin 10 years earlier, in the racially divided South? What if she hooked up with an old black bluesman and a rich, young white sax player to record an incendiary 45 record that, though many remember hearing, no one seems to have ever owned? What if murder, duplicity, love, and redemption follow the trail of the lost 45? Pink Cadillac takes place at a magical roadhouse outside of Memphis, presided over by Bearcat Jackson, a former blues impresario, and his common law wife, Sonesta Clarke, a blues singer who has turned to religion. Also at the roadhouse is Dell Dellaplane, the jazzed up saxophone player and the son of a rich real estate man who s dying to learn the true secrets of the blues. Delivered into this world is Daisy Holiday, a young white singer with a huge, stunning voice and a perilous ambition. On her way to Memphis, Daisy befriends Elvis Presley, who with characteristic generosity gives her one of his pink Cadillacs. The roadhouse is in trouble, and to help save it, Dell writes, Bearcat produces, and Daisy sings a hot record based on Elvis s kiss of kismet, appropriately titled Pink Cadillac. With great hopes they send their only copy to a record producer friend of Dell s, Cuth Starks, who falls for Daisy s picture and develops his agenda for her. All hell breaks loose. Threats descend from the powerful white Memphis establishment; betrayals loom from outside the roadhouse, and in; even though the song looks to be a great hit, Daisy and her band fall apart, then the disc is lost; and in a final tragic scene, Bearcat Jackson is tragically shot dead. The question of who killed the Bearcat and what happened to the lost 45 drives the novel s story. Pink Cadillac is a compelling read, at its heart a mystery, but more than that an evocation of the timeless mysteries of great music.
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