Tie Die

Steve was a teenage rocker on the brink of a stellar career back in the sixties but his life crashed when a teenage girl was found dead in his hotel room and he fled abroad. A decade or son on he lives in California and works as a builder while dreaming of a come-back.. Cal is an unlicensed P.I., not long out of prison who Steve contacts when his daughter is kidnapped. The attempted pay off goes wrong and the case looks more and more fishy, with hints that may reach back to the past. There's plenty of action, violence and suspense to keep the story moving along.

3.5 stars
Steve Cook was on his way to fame, fortune, and a lifestyle he couldn't even imagine as lead singer and composer of his group, However the dream is soon to end when a naked sixteen year old was found dead in his bed. This occurrence happened in the sixties and Steve fled, finding himself in the seventies in California, working in construction and still dreaming of the day he will achieve his heart's desire. Then the horrible happens and his daughter is abducted and a ransom is demanded.

To the rescue comes Colleen Hayes, no neophyte when it comes to the dark side of human nature, herself having served time for the murder of her husband. Colleen is smart, tenacious and is hot on the trail of both the kidnappers and the reason behind the abduction.

Things move along and there is a huge deception put forth by Steve's ex wife and her father. Then things take a very sinister turn and Colleen must once again figure out the devious plan and path of the kidnapper, all with being attracted to Steve.

This was a fine story, a bit convoluted at times, but a quick and easy read.
Thank you to Max Tomlinson, Oceanview Publishing, and Net Galley for a copy of this book

I was excited to read this book after a trip to San Francisco several years ago, I love learning more about the area - even in a fictional mystery. I had previously read the first book in this series, Vanishing in the Haight. This second book in the series. I loved the time of mystery solving without all the technology that is present today. The fast-paced writing, characters, and humor made this a quick read. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Once upon a time Steve Cook had it all before him...hit singles and rock stardom . Then one morning he woke up In the U.K. with an underage girl in his bed, dead. Fleeing to the U.S., he stayed out of jail but the elusive career disappeared. Flash forward to 1978 and his 11-year old daughter, Melanie, has gone missing, reportedly kidnapped He reaches out to Colleen Hayes, a badass P.I. For help. Her search for his daughter leads her into the morass of record corruption and back to that fateful night. Interesting time period and protagonist and an enjoyable way to spend a few hours.

I really liked the first title in Max Tomlinson’s Colleen Hayes series so I was happy to receive an ARC of the second title in the series, Tie Die, to read in exchange for my honest review. And, I really liked this book too. I think it’s better than the first one.

First off, the writing in Tie Die is just as crisp and evocative of a by-gone era as it was in Vanishing in the Haight. That was a nice start. It was fun to see Colleen get to move around a bit more than in the first book, including more of California and a trip to London. On a side note, I wish there had been a bit more description of the trip to London itself, just for atmosphere, especially since I made my first trip to London myself around that time. But that wouldn’t have added anything to the story, I suspect. And the descriptions of London of that era definitely brought back memories for me that I really enjoyed.

Then there’s the kidnapping - or is it a kidnapping? Colleen has to figure out what’s going on and why, while hoping the whole time that the young girl who’s missing is okay. I don’t want to say too much about that, to avoid being spoiler-ish, but suffice it to say that it’s not as straightforward as it seems at first.

I think the thing I liked most about this book as compared to the first in the series though, is that it was a little bit more hopeful. It’s not that all of Colleen’s personal problems are fixed, and the finish isn’t a 100 percent happy ending for her client. After all, in a noir-ish book/series, a happy ending is just not going to happen. But still I came away with a feeling that things are looking up just a little more for Colleen, and that felt right.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out how many stars to give this book. I’m on record in my review of the first book as saying I would have given it 4 ½ stars if I could. On the other hand, I try to fight “star-flation” a little bit, so I give most books 4 stars, and reserve 5 stars for a very few absolute favorite books that I am going to read and re-read again and again. But, since I said the first one deserved 4 ½ stars, and since I like this one better, I think I’m going to have to break in favor of giving this one 5 stars. And I hope Tomlinson writes another in this series!

This is my first novel to read by Max Tomlinson, and I am already looking to pick up more! The story is well rounded, enthralling, and so very well articulated on the page! The characters all came to life and I felt each and every emotion while reading! I could not put this down!

Tie Die takes readers into the past, with a story about the often corrupt world of rock 'n roll in the late '60s and "current day" in the late '70s.

Steve Cook was the teen-aged lead singer of a hot British band living the dream until his life fell apart. Drunk, with no memory of how he even got to bed after the concert, he wakes one day to find an under-age girl dead in his bed. He's arrested, dropped by his record label and soon fades from the public eye.

Fast forward to San Francisco in 1978. Steve is working construction and sometimes singing with a no-name band in a local bar. When his 11 year-old daughter, Melanie, is kidnapped he calls Colleen Hayes, a private investigator who started her own firm Hayes Confidential, for help. It doesn't take long for Colleen to determine that something about the kidnapping doesn't ring true.

Colleen is a strong female lead and I enjoyed her character. Tough and confident, she is skilled at uncovering leads and is not afraid to follow up on them. I look forward to reading more about her and the cases she is given to solve.

The book held my interest about 65% of the way through. At that point, even though Colleen was working her game well, the whole thing just started to drag for me and I found myself looking forward to it being over. I give it 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Oceanview Publishers for allowing me to read a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

There may be a worse combination than sudden fame and all the trappings of mega-success for a group of young lads, but you’ll have to work to come up with one. Or, you can just dive headfirst into Tie Die, Max Tomlinson’s delicious new thriller, to see just how bad “worse” could be…
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Stevie Cook was the lead singer of an up-and-coming band—The Lost Chords—living the high life with his bandmates and rubbing elbows with the likes of the Stones in London. All of eighteen years old, he’d been swept from a normal life, to a crazy whirlwind of swinging 1960s excess, with all the booze, drugs, fancy clothes and gear, and female companionship he could lay his hands on.

Until one morning, that is, when he woke up, hung-over after a big show, with a naked young girl stone-cold dead in the bed next to him… and everything changed, again. Only this time, for the so-much-worse.

Stevie fled Great Britain, fearing arrest, and vanished, and The Lost Chords disbanded, with only one album under their collective low-slung belts.

Cut to more than a decade later, 1978 San Francisco. A new-to-the-job private investigator, one Colleen Haynes, gets a call from a prospective client, whose daughter has been kidnapped. After accepting the usual “don’t-tell-the-police-or-else” instructions, she agrees to meet, to see if she can be of help.

Imagine her surprise when the father turns out to be none other than Steve Cook—the lead singer of a long-ago band (which mysteriously disbanded), whose music she briefly listened to during a rough patch in her long-ago marriage—all grown up.

Colleen still feels strongly that the police should be involved, but both her younger self and her mid-30s, seen-it-all self feel compelled to help Steve, who turns out to be a pretty nice, regular (albeit waaaay down-on-his-luck) guy. And Colleen, well… she has a pretty dark secret of her own, in the past, that she’s none-too-anxious to share with her new client, either.

After the first attempt at delivering the ransom money gets botched big-time, though, Colleen and Steve gradually come to realize it may not be possible for either of them to keep their secrets hidden from each other… because those very secrets could make the difference between a father ever seeing his eleven-year-old daughter again… or not.
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Tomlinson is a new author to me—and Colleen Hayes, a new character (although it turns out this is actually her second appearance, after his earlier Vanishing in the Haight, which I’ll definitely be going back to read, soon)—and, it turns out, a real find. I couldn’t put Tie Die down; it was that good.

Full of delightful bits of color, I ate up Tomlinson’s depiction of both the rock scene in Swinging ‘60s London (before I was born, so really fun to read about), as well as 1978 San Francisco (and Los Angeles, which was an extra highlight for me). From the soundtrack he provides—well worth pausing one’s reading and YouTubing, at each mention—to the vivid descriptions of places, hairstyles, clothing, and cars (seriously, I have an ex who would be thrilled that Colleen drives a Torino), Tomlinson puts you in the moment and anchors you there… and it’s these touches that really take Tie Die to another level for me.

Too often, stories set in the not-that-distant past read as more wistfully-nostalgic, than compelling, entertaining, and fresh; Tie Die definitely falls under the latter, and is not to be missed.
~GlamKitty

A Riveting Trip down Memory Lane

Colleen Hayes is the sole proprietor of a PI agency in San Francisco. The story is set in the late 70s with flashbacks to the music scene in London in the 1960s. Steven Cooke, who had been a rising music star in 60s London, fled London after a dead fan was found in his hotel room after a performance one might. He ended up in South America and subsequently ended up in San Francisco, doing singing gigs around town.

When the story opens Steve contacts Colleen Hayes because his daughter has been abducted. After meeting him she agrees to take on the case. A ransom demand has been made. Colleen, having spent several years in prison, is suspicious and and probes into the backstory of Steve and his ex-wife who is the daughter of a music producer. A ransom drop is arranged, supposedly the daughter in exchange for the money. Against her instincts Colleen decides to handle the drop which goes off the rails as the money is snatched from her but the daughter is not there.

A trip to London and interviews with some of Steve's band members reveal that he was set up to take the fall for the dead fan in his room. Colleen discovers a connection between Steve's former manager and and the music industry in California. Eventually Colleen unravels that the abduction is a scam. This leads her on a path to rescue the "kidnapped" daughter.

This was my first encounter with Max Tomlinson and Colleen Hayes. I am cueing up the first book to learn more about Colleen's background. A very promising new PI series. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this novel which I thoroughly enjoyed.

This was a great romp! Beginning in the 60's rock-n-roll singer Steve has plenty of fans and a voice of gold. But when a young groupie ends up dead in his bed, he flees believing his life is over. Fast forward to 1968 and his ex-wife tells him their young daughter Melanie has been kidnapped and he must pay $20,000 to get her back so he hires Colleen an investigator he finds. But little does he know that she's an ex-con and a take-no-prisoners kind of sleuth who will stop at nothing to help him, recover Melanie, and find out the truth as things go awry. Of course things get dicey and there are many puzzles to solve but Colleen is hell-bent on getting to the bottom of this scandal. I eagerly await the next book in this series!

Thoroughly enjoyed this sequel to Max Tomlinson's <i>Vanishing in the Haight</i>. The characters are believable and well crafted, with the twists in the mystery eeping the action moving whil engaging the reader. Looking forward to more int he Colleen Hayes' series.

A good mystery, well written and gripping.
I loved the well crafted plot and the excellent characters.
The mystery is solid and kept me guessing.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Sex, booze and rock ‘n roll.

It’s 1966, London, and 18 year old Steve Cook is riding the wave of stardom as the lead singer of a hot new band. Until a dead girl is found in his hotel room one morning after a gig. Steve is still drunk and cannot remember even going to bed the night before. He is still only a person of interest, not a murder suspect, but he flees the country regardless, his music career in tatters

Fast forward to 1978, Steve is living in San Francisco and his daughter has just been kidnapped. He contacts Colleen Hayes, a private investigator, to find her. Colleen has a troubled past of her own. Pregnant and married at 16, she killed her husband 8 years later for abusing their daughter. After spending 9 years in prison she is now the sole owner and operator of Hayes Confidential (her PI agency). Steve gets a ransom demand but Colleen’s years in prison have taught her a lot. She believes something about the whole set-up smells fishy. She might be right! Then things get very complicated very quickly.

This was a fun trip down memory lane. How quickly you forget there was a time before mobile (cell) phones and the internet. So there are no google searches to help Colleen. She must do things the old-fashioned way. The first half of the book was a bit pedestrian. I really enjoyed the second half though where things got dicey for both Colleen and Steve and where old secrets and enemies are unearthed to throw a dark pall over the present. I also really liked Colleen’s character, she is tough and fearless. I suppose hard time will do that to you. If the author starts the next book like he finished this one he will be onto a winner. 3 ½ stars rounded to 3.

In 1966, 16yrs old Steve Cook, a ideal admired by all for his singing talent and his songs has been on the superhit charts for weeks. His world turns around when once in the morning after his performance, a girl is found dead in his bed. Being a teenager he get scared fleed away from London & settles in US.

Now present it's 1978, Steve daughter Melina has been abducted and a high ransom pay is being demanded and after few days his ex-wife, Lynda is murdered and here again Steve is charged for the murder as the murdering weapon is found hidden in his house.

Colleen Hayes, a private detective hired by Steve who herself happens to be his fan at a time is now looking after Melina's kidnapping & Lynda's murder case. She knows how it's like to on the accused side as she'd just got released from 10yrs in prison for murdering her ex.
As through the case all present & past mysteries & their connections are opening up by layer while Colleen & Steve being in constant trouble with their lives.

Okay I guess my main disappointment was that probably this novel is for people who know San Francisco very well. I mean being a non- U.S. resident, it was so hard to keep up the so much info like instead of writing she took left turn, there was an address which was seriously messing up. And the 2nd point the story was a bit slow & stretched out. Mysteries and thrillers were pretty good.

Non-stop action in this book with a good story and good characters. Excellent use of creating the atmosphere by showing the setting - it was a throwback in time. Little details made all the difference - the clothes, pay phones, music,etc. A good mystery and some romance thrown in. A very entertaining book!

This was second book in this series and it was as good as the first. Filled with mystery and suspense. This is a book which I would recommend to others.

I read a few pages and a like the story and the way it's written but i decided to stop when i realise that exist a Book #1.
When i read the sinopse i didn't realise that.

But thank to netgalley for the opportunity to know Max Tomlinson work.

*5 Stars*

Copy kindly received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really good read with interesting characters. I was satisfied with what happened to some of the characters.

The mystery itself is solid, but you're here for the 1970's - the book is drenched in the seedy, sexy, flamboyant, harsh flavour of the time period, without it feeling like cheap name dropping.

A female lead in a book set in during that decade also adds a whole dimension you wouldn't get with the normal hard-boiled male detective.

I was definitely surprised with this one! At first it took me a little bit to get into it but then I couldn’t put it down! Go ahead and try it!

This is my favorite kind of mystery - crackling with action right out of the gate, with a literal rock star main character. Steve Cook is a character I liked immediately, and so is unlicensed PI Colleen Hayes. I loved the 70s San Francisco backdrop. This book was clearly written by someone who knows San Francisco rather than someone who just read a lot about the era.

Colleen is a great character and I had a lot of fun reading a gritty Virginia Slim-smoking female PI novel set in SF in the 70s with a fun sense of humor about itself. (A random of $20,000 is described as “twice what most people make in a year.”) Having worked in criminal law in SF myself (though not in the 70s) I was very pleased that this book felt very authentic as well as fun. All the right elements are here at the right times: kidnapping, sex, murder, the hero who might be the killer...and yet it’s not predictable.

If you like your crime novels dark and hard boiled and full of action, but also with a sense of humor, this is a great little find. Tomlinson’s book masters the hard boiled 70s detective style without ever feeling forced. You can tell he had as much fun writing it as I had reading it. will definitely be reading more Max Tomlinson books. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5!

Thanks to NetGalley, Max Tomlinson and Oceanview Publishing for this fun read. I will read more of Colleen Hayes!

This was an interesting read! Sidney O'Keefe is a recently paroled convict that was wrongly accused of murdering a family of four. He is on a short vacation with his family when his daughter goes missing. He and his wife have to find where she is before he is framed for her kidnapping. The story sends you on a roller coaster and has so many twist and turns that you cold never see coming. The author really gives you the chance to get into the protagonist's head as he battles with tough decisions that could complicate finding his daughter alive. Thanks to @netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review.

A colorful location, a tantalizing puzzle, and an abundance of San Francisco lore.

This will please a wide variety of mystery readers.

I was hooked to this book the entire time.

**Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange for a honest review**

To begin with, I wondered if this would be a DNF (did not finish) for me. Why? The choppy writing style drove me to distraction.

A knock on the door. Answered it. Sat down. Not a direct quote, but that type of thing.

Thankfully, once I settled into the story, it became less noticeable.

Colleen Hayes is one of my all-time favourite heroines. Although this is the first book I've read in the series, I believe it can be read as a standalone. With that said, I'm looking forward to backtracking to find out more about our heroine.

Steve's story was compelling as was Colleen's amateur sleuthing, there was only one instant I questioned and that was her need to find out what Steve had done all those years ago when his ex just had a rant stating as much...in Colleen's presence.

Minor quibbles aside, I loved the era this story was set in. The '70s. The mention of many a teen's idol from that time, Leif Garret, brought back memories.

If you enjoy a good mystery with leads you'll be rooting for, you can't go far wrong here.

Copy provided by the publisher, Ocean Publishing, via NetGalley