cover image The Big Rewind

The Big Rewind

Libby Cudmore. Morrow, $14.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-240353-7

Heads up, vinyl-loving hipsters: Cudmore's debut is for you. Jett Bennett is a young New York City temp who came to the big city with dreams of becoming a music journalist. Soon she's griping, "I wish someone had told me print was dead." The rhythm of her life in her funky section of Brooklyn is disrupted when she discovers the battered body of a neighbor, and she sets out to find the killer. In the course of her investigation, Jett begins reexamining her own life. She encounters a steady stream of friends, acquaintances, and hangers-on, but music is the glue that holds the story together: the Psychedelic Furs, Warren Zevon, Tom Cochrane, Talking Heads, Hall and Oates, Cindi Lauper%E2%80%94and this does not even come close to listing all the musicians mentioned in the song-laced text. Cudmore has preserved for all time a slice of current, hipster Brooklyn. (Feb.)