Filmmaker, producer, director and pop-music wizard Nelson George has worked with Spike Lee, Chris Rock and Queen Latifah. As a journalist he has written for Billboard, the Village Voice and many blogs. His acclaimed nonfiction books include profiles of Michael Jackson and Motown Records. His fiction, however, is less well known. After his inaugural 2003 novel, Night Work, about a black pop star called Night, George launched a New York City noir series featuring D Hunter, Brooklyn bodyguard to rapper VIPs. The first two, Accidental Hunter and The Plot Against Hip Hop, swing to the sounds of urban patois against a background of George's extensive knowledge of the players, songs and labels of the "post-soul" era.
In his third D Hunter novel, The Lost Treasures of R&B, George shifts focus to the history of R&B. Hunter is hired to find a rumored rare vinyl recording supposedly taped when rival Stax and Motown hitmakers Otis Redding and Diana Ross scatted together in the Detroit Fox Theater. Living with HIV and without family after his brothers' murders, D is further down on his luck because his Manhattan security company went bust. In desperate pursuit of his finder's fee, he stumbles on a gun sale gone bad, a corrupt Brooklyn cop and a white realtor bent on gentrifying Hunter's old 'hood. If the plot is pretty much typical noir double-crossing and misdirection, the wonderful sing-song street slang dialogue and esoteric industry knowledge make The Lost Treasures of R&B a richly entertaining addition to George's evolving series. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.