(Nota Bene: I have stopped using the star rating system, as I find it highly misleading. References to "stars" refer to platforms that still require them.)

Did you ever see that old movie Eddie and the Cruisers? THE BAND has the same sort of vibe. This book is primarily about, you guessed it, a band, on the road looking for gigs, and the author does a beautiful job of describing the travails, victories, and interpersonal relationships and conflicts experienced by the members. If it were only about the band, it would have been a good read, in and of itself. Kummer's descriptions are soulful and vivid, and the characters are well-developed. But, throughout, there is something else going on, something dark, peaking in every now and again, waiting to break through - murder. While I would not categorize this book as horror, per se, it turns into a psychological thriller. There may be some supernatural overtones, but they're never made concrete. The hints of what's to come are scattered throughout, though they never manage to overcome "the band" as the main plot, which had me confused for quite some time but became clear through a natural progression that I did not quite expect. My criticisms would be that, sometimes, the dialogue, which reads as realistic, gets a little hard to follow, and I'm still not exactly sure how Tionna played into the band's storyline, as the Prologue sets up an entirely different story that, by the end, didn't connect. I would have liked to have seen the darkness build earlier, as, a few times, I forgot about the murders and got lost in the band's interplay. And, lastly, I was slightly disappointed with how it ended. What happened needed to happen, but it fell a little flat for me. All in all, Kummer is a good writer and this book is worth the read. I would have given it 5 stars based solely upon the band's storyline.