Short And Oh. So. Sweet.
Review by Kim Cantrell
John Vandiver had been trying to many years to make it as musician but could only watch as those around him signed contracts, living the dream. And then the Texas oil bust happened and times got tight, especially for blues playing solo acts.
John was desperate to make ends meet for him and his live-in girlfriend Debbie Davis, so he turned to selling pot. And that venture soon morphed to cocaine sales, which had a hire profit margin as a “rich man’s drug.”
One of the men John sold to was Tom Mathes, a friend of a friend, who saw himself as a drug kingpin and often hosted parties where the pot and coke were passed around freely. So reckless with the product and with a bad habit of having trouble coming up with the money he owed his supplier, John held tighter on the reigns of he and Tom’s cocaine deals.
Tom felt John had no respect for him; only saw him as a car mechanic and not a big player on the drug circuit. Conspiring with his hired pals, Tom come up with a plan that would forever change John’s view of him.
Kathryn Casey in her smooth writing style and special knack for making short stories as intense as full length books does it again with her 2011 true crime short Blues & Bad Blood: A True Story of Drugs, Music, and A Cold-Blooded Murder.
In just twenty-two pages, there’s a multitude of emotions, from sympathy for the struggling musician to anger at the man whose jealousy led to the murder.
Blues & Bad Blood is the perfect book for those time where magazine articles are too short but books require more time than you’ve got.
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