The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers

I know they say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but let’s be honest: we all do it. I can’t help it; I find myself drawn to compelling covers, and if the first few lines of the dust jacket summary catch my opinion, then chances are I’m going to give the book a shot. That’s what happened with The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers. The cover evokes classic rock concert posters of the 1960s-70s, and the plot summary promised a scandalous tale of a woman who dated her way through one of the most famous bands of the time. I didn’t bother reading anything else before adding it to the stack of books I planned to buy that day.

Unfortunately, the book itself fell short for me. I should have read more closely - I came in hoping for a book similar to Daisy Jones and the Six, and instead found myself enmeshed in a story closer to a detective novel or a thriller. The novel centers on the perspective of Mari, the ghostwriter hired to write the notorious woman’s memoir about her time with the band, rather than on the band themselves. Mari becomes caught up in the world of these rock stars and the people who surround them, and finds herself obsessing over the truth of who is responsible for the death of Mal, the drug-addled lead singer.

Initially I found it interesting to get a peek inside the process of ghost writing a celebrity memoir; the book’s author has ghost written many books before releasing this, her first novel, so there’s an authenticity to the process that I found compelling. However, as the book veered more toward mystery/thriller territory, I struggled to maintain my interest. This is a pretty short novel for what it aims to accomplish, and the pace felt too fast - for a group that claims to be so secretive, the band seems very quick to trust Mari and bring her into their world. The pace also moved too fast for me to truly develop an interest in these characters; I honestly didn’t care all that much about uncovering the truth and I struggled to understand why Mari let herself get so involved.

There’s also some details about Mari’s family backstory - her absentee father’s compulsive gambling habits, and her sister’s tendency to flit from man to man, relying on them to support her and landing herself in bad situations. It ultimately didn’t really add much to the story for me - I wish there had been more of a point to showing Mari trying to help her sister, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, and it left me wondering why this was included.

If you enjoy mysteries, you may enjoy this book. There are compelling motives for pretty much every character on the page, so it is interesting to try to wade through the clues and figure out who is actually to blame for Mal’s death. However, this really isn’t my preferred genre, so this wasn’t my cup of tea. Serves me right for not taking the time to look more into the book before buying it!