My novel gets a playlist!

My excellent colleague and friend Devi Vijay lives in India, but we keep in fairly close touch. Knowing our shared interest in music, she recently sent me an article about all the musical works referenced in the writings of a famous Japanese author. The article contained a link to a playlist, so the reader could listen to the complete canon, book by book.

Since I’m writing my first novel at the moment and one of my main characters is a musician, the playlist particularly caught my attention. A mystery story set in south west Scotland in the year 2023, the novel is being serialised and appears here month by month.

Inspired by the nudge from Devi, I looked through my draft to date, and made a list of all the pieces of music that are mentioned so far. I was quite surprised at the result. There are general references to different musical forms and tropes, as well as the work of particular composers and performers. But I was somewhat taken aback to see how many specific works crop up from named artists, dotted through the unfolding narrative.

I set about looking for these recordings on the internet and compiled a list, with links, in a Word document. This I sent to my good friend Tony Hirst. He is one of a small group of people who each month read my latest chapter and give comments before I publish it on my blog. He is also a dedicated and tech-savvy music fan, whose conversation is littered with casual references to playlists, podcasts, downloads, and such like.

To my astonishment, and within a couple of hours, Tony sent me a new link. I opened it up to find a highly professional-looking playlist, derived from my novel and which can be enjoyed alongside reading the text.

So here, with thanks to Devi and Tony, is the Epiphanies and Robberies Playlist, for your entertainment! I hope you enjoy it, and who knows, some more tracks may appear before the year end?

Oh and by the way, if you are wondering who the famous contemporary author is, the answer of course, is Haruki Murakami.