«Not only a satisfying and multi-layered mystery, but also a well researched and dynamic portrait of a teeming city, rife with corruption»

Guardian

«A vividly written crime thriller which is a contender for book of the year»

<i>Daily Mirror </i>on <i>The Mobster's Lament</i>

«One of the most ambitious and riveting works of crime fiction in years . . .»

<i>Sunday Express </i>on <i>The Mobster's Lament</i>

«Captivating»

<i>Spectator </i>on <i>Dead Man's Blues</i>

«An absolute must for true crime fanatics»

Refinery 29

«Outstanding»

<i>Daily Telegraph</i> on <i>The Axeman's Jazz</i>

«Celestin’s debut The Axeman’s Jazz immediately attained cult status, and successive books also impressed. But this is his most dizzying accomplishment, a truly epic crime chronicle. Set in a pulsing 1960s Los Angeles, Celestin creates a joint picture of the histories of organised crime and jazz, full of coruscating detail.»

Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

«Sunset Swing concludes Ray Celestin's outstanding City Blues quartet . . . Celestin's most perfectly wrought portrait, however is of the City of Dreams itself, soaked in corruption and empty of heart. Sunset Swing may be an ode to the classics of hard-boiled noir, but it has more than enough rhythm of its own to take its place beside them»

The Times

«Magnificent and moving»

Sunday Times Crime Club

«Over four books, beginning with The Axeman’s Jazz in 2014, Ray Celestin has constructed a riveting saga of music, the mafia and murder in four American cities from 1919 to the 1960s. Sunset Swing, unfolding in Los Angeles in 1967, brings his City Blues Quartet to a triumphant conclusion . . . Brilliantly combines the page-turning tension of the best crime fiction with a panoramic portrait of a city in the midst of profound social change»

Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

«

Here ends one of the finest achievements of recent crime fiction, Ray Celestin’s City Blues Quartet . . . Throughout this series, the counterpoint to Celestin's stark portrayal of a fundamentally corrupt and gangster-ridden America has been his rare ability to capture in prose something of the glory of the music made by Armstrong and his fellow jazz-men. Here he rises to the final challenge of Armstrong's last comeback . . . Few artists have combined greatness and lovability to the extent Armstrong did, and these outstanding hard-boiled thrillers double as a worthy tribute to him

»

Jake Kerridge, The Sunday Telegraph

«

Sunset Swing brings Ray Celestin’s brilliant City Blues Quartet to an end in quite some style. This outstanding series has tracked its characters across four major American cities and over half a century . . . Each of the four books is an epic in its own right, but here, as winter wildfires rage at the end of the continent, the feel is almost apocalyptic . . .

The section . . . where Amstrong is first confounded by, then finds a new way to understand and interpret, Bob Thiele’s lyrics for ‘What A Wonderful World’, is as fine and nuanced a piece of writing about music as you’ll find anywhere. It’s one of several superb and moving moments in the best book in a quite remarkable series. Start here if you want, but to get the full effect, put The Axeman’s Jazz, Dead Man's Blues, and The Mobster's Lament on your Christmas list as well. It would almost be a crime not to.

»

The Quietus