I hate time and distance problems. I’m pretty certain I was at home, sick, when they taught us how to solve the train problem at school. I feel like I’ve missed some fundamental part of my education. Like the time I came down with tonsillitis on the day they dealt with the meaning of pi.

And since I was a schoolboy, I can honestly say I’ve never once been asked how far apart two trains will be from one another at 11.30am if Train A leaves London at 5.30am travelling at 80 km/hr and Train B leaves London at 7.30am travelling at 105 km/hr and they’re going in opposite directions.

But that’s exactly what was staring me in the face as I sat in a pub in Hampstead, killing time before my appointment with Mr. Sinclair and his bulldog at the top of Primrose Hill.

I’m a professional musician. I’m also a private investigator, though it’s on a bespoke basis only. I’ve just finished a concert tour of England with my mum’s Celtic-folky-pop band, Figgis Green, and I’m trying to get back to my ordinary life in my ordinary world. Except everything since the end of that tour has been very un-ordinary—starting with the unfortunate suicide of a fan. But not before he handed me a note that’s now plunged me into a quest to locate a collection of stolen musical manuscripts by England’s most famous composer, Sir Edward Elgar. That fan—Marcus Merritt—loved brain-teasers and quizzes—much like Elgar himself. So I’ve ended up following a series of bizarre clues that seem to mirror the fourteen themes in one of Elgar’s most famous compositions, the Enigma Variations.

Did I mention I’m competing with a notorious Soho crimelord and a ruthless Russian thug to retrieve that stolen collection? And that, for reasons of personal safety, I’ve just had to destroy one of those written clues by eating the paper it was printed on? In another life, I’d have had a handy lighter and I’d have burned it. But I’ve given up smoking. And eating paper’s something I haven’t done since I was about two. I don’t recommend it. It’s revolting and paper doesn’t disintegrate between your teeth the way food does. It also gives you indigestion.

Back to the time and distance problem. Apparently, if I cracked it, I’d learn something new and crucial about where the manuscripts were hidden.

I phoned my son, Dom, to see if he could help.

“Foolishness,” he said. “Why are you concerning yourself with these things?”

He obviously didn’t have the answer. So I called my sister, Angie.

“It’s a linear equation,” she said. “Give me a moment.”

For an author of cozy culinary mysteries, she’s surprisingly adept at solving thorny questions that usually only show up on school exams and Mensa tests.

“You need to know the equation that the problem is built around,” she said.

“And there you have it,” I replied. “One of the many examples of obscure, practically useless information that nobody can be arsed to remember from school.”

Anyway, she unriddled it.

“By the way,” she added, “I’m putting you in my next book.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said.

“I’ve already put you in three others and you didn’t recognize yourself, so I feel I’m on safe ground. This time I’ll make a point of highlighting your character’s deficiencies in mathematical formulas and problem solving. How would you like to be killed?”

I’m Jason Davey. Welcome to my well-scrambled mystery world, lurking somewhere between softboiled and hardboiled, with a touch of noir.

Bad Boy, A Jason Davey Mystery Book 5
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: September 2024
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Fresh from a 34-day, 18-city tour of England, professional musician and amateur sleuth Jason Davey accepts an invitation from a fan, Marcus Merritt, to meet at Level 72 of The Shard to sign one of his band’s programs. Marcus hands him the booklet, then leaps to his death from the open viewing platform. Thus begins a week-long quest, during which Jason is tasked with retrieving a stolen collection of scores by England’s most famous composer, Sir Edward Elgar.

Marcus shared Elgar’s love of eccentric puzzles and games, and the challenging clues he’s assembled for Jason seem to mirror the 14 themes in Elgar’s renowned Enigma Variations. Jason’s journey takes him to Derbyshire and then back to London, and a four-hour walking tour of Soho’s lost music venues where, in Denmark Street, he faces a life-threatening battle with two adversaries: a treacherous Russian gangster who is also hunting for the stolen collection, and Marcus’s sister—who holds the key to a decades-old mystery involving a notorious London crime lord’s missing daughter.

About the author
Winona Kent was born in London, England and grew up in Saskatchewan. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and a screenwriting diploma from VFS. Winona has been a temporary secretary, a travel agent, a screenwriter, the Managing Editor of a literary magazine and a university Graduate Programs Assistant. She’s the author of an anthology of short stories and eleven novels, including her five current Jason Davey soft-boiled musical mysteries. Winona lives in New Westminster, BC with her husband, and a concerning number of disobedient houseplants, many of which were rescued from her apartment building’s compost bin after being abandoned by previous owners. Winona is the current Chair of the Crime Writers of Canada.

Please visit her website at winonakent.com.