World Enough

Remembering the music If you were in Boston at the time Clea Simon writes about you will love this book. Brings back a lot of memories of the music scene at that time -the bands, the clubs, and the music.

A Unique, Boston-based Mystery As someone who grew up in the Boston exurbs and "understood" much of the local music scene only through reading music reviews in the local papers, (how I miss the Phoenix and the days when the Globe had a real music section), Clea Simon's "World Enough" feels like an expose into a dreamlike era. But it's also a compelling mystery and extremely well-written character study of a woman trying to make sense of her memories in a city where incessant construction and development are burying all the clues. Highly recommended.

A multi-layered, intricately plotted mystery In a departure from her cat-centric cozy mysteries, Clea Simon introduces us to a new protagonist in World Enough. Tara Winton, a former rock journalist bored with her current job as communications manager for a large corporation, reconnects with a group of friends she used to hang out with in Boston's club scene twenty years ago when one of the group's members dies after falling down his basement stairs. But was it really an accident? As Tara finds herself pulled back into her past, she begins to uncover disturbing truths both past and present.Masterfully plotted with multi-dimensional characters, World Enough takes the reader deep into the 1980's Boston club scene and one woman's struggle to both reconnect with and disconnect from her past.

Well done! In pin-point specific jargon, Clea Simon depicts Boston's musical underground for what it was in the eighties: thrilling, a hint of the taboo, the kind of place outsiders become insiders, and all because of an identification with the music of the times that draws Boston's youth en masse to a world of their own. This book pulses in the rhythmic cadence of a bass and kick drum in an arena where anything can happen, and probably did, as journalist on assignment, Tara Winton, who is in the gritty culture but not of it, suspects. Author Clea Simon has penned a noir story and set it in the night clubs of Boston. She lures the reader to the unravelling of a mystery, and reports with an eye for detail and a flair for nostalgia over the music that laid the foundation in a culture now gone.

Compelling mystery rich with atmosphere ... World Enough is a compelling mystery that takes the reader into the dark, smoky, drug-riddled clubs of the Boston music scene in the 1980s as Tara Winton revisits her past in order to solve a mysterious death. Tara is an endearingly imperfect character who, like the other habituees of the ‘80s rock scene filling out the book, grapples with middle age, the lost dreams of youth and a future that didn’t turn out as expected. Clea Simon is a gifted writer who weaves together past and present in a satisfying story that is rich with atmosphere and gritty, resilient characters who keep you on your toes wondering if they are really who they seem.

A thrilling world of lost loves, dark secrets, and great music. The clubs and bars of Boston's hot and grungy punk rock scene of the 1980's have long since been replaced by cool and corporate glass skyscrapers. But sparks fly when a writer who was part of the scene twenty years ago is drawn back into the past -- into a thrilling world of lost loves, dark secrets, and great music.

Now a new voice, Clea Simon...World Enough is a slice of lost Boston More than one writer has shaded Boston as a character into the background of their stories. The late Robert B. Parker with his Spenser series, and George V. Higgins with his singular sad sack Eddie Coyle come to mind. Dennis Lehane is another writer who has covered Boston, whether it's during Prohibition in Given Day, life in the triple-deckers in Mystic River, or adventures with his private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Their Boston is blue-collar and gritty and violent. Now a new voice, Clea Simon has come along and offers readers something different.Her World Enough is a slice of lost Boston, namely the area around Kenmore Square that real estate developers would obliterate. Literally. There was something for everyone, and a lot of it. There were unique bands with unique sounds such as Throwing Muses, Dinosaur, Salem 66, and my favorite discovery from that time, The Pixies. A rich vibrant and fluid music scene of punk, New Wave, and thrash thrived in the area. All those venues and clubs are long gone.What's unique about World Enough is that readers get nostalgia refracted through the faulty memory of Tara Winton, along with a mystery. Tara is trying to reconcile details about a suspicious death with what she knew about the victim in her youth. What is a refreshing change here is that Tara is a journalist and not a PI, and the author doesn't portray her as difficult or unpleasant - a common trope in crime/mystery fiction. Tenacious she is, yes, and I enjoyed seeing how a journalist digs for the truth. There is a different mental process at work here in solving the riddle. Past and present seem to blend and blur at times in the narrative, but I think that speaks to Clea Simon's strength and fidelity to perception and psychology. World Enough will introduce readers to another side of Boston, one that that isn't stereotyped. I look forward to the next installment of Tara Winton.

I recommend "World Enough" by Clea Simon For anyone who has ever been a part of a local music scene and enjoys a bit of a" who done it" with spit and grit, I recommend "World Enough" by Clea Simon. Fun and sometimes dark. But then that's what I look for in a book. This is Boston, not LA.(those in the know understand the reference)

Great book about the 1980's Rock Scene in a Mystery Tara Winton is a former clubber/music reporter from the 1980's Boston scene. She now has a "real" job. Whenan opportunity arises to write an article for an independent magazine, she jumps at the chance. She focuses on adeath back then and a current death to tie the article together. When she might be getting to close, she gets threatened.Great book and hopefully the start of a new series! This book has everything, sex, drugs and Rock&Roll.... I'd recommend it.One warning, although she is known for her cozies, this is NOT!!

Noir is really a bit more gris I was disappointed overall. It kept my interest to completion, but not the page turner I had hoped for. It might have more appeal if you are familiar with the 80's grunge/ garage band scene in Boston. It teeters on formulaic. Not a lot of depth.

I Cannot Recommend ‘World Enough’ Enough. Clea Simon has long been one of my fave music writers. We both love a good mystery too. I happen to be one of those jerks who unerringly figures out whodunit in the first few chapters of the book.Part of what makes Simon’s latest, ‘World Enough’, so appealing is I was kept guessing right up to the moment former critic-turned-sleuth Tara Winston worked it out; just before the big reveal. That its setting is split between the Boston music scene of the ‘80s & early aughts, a scene I know all too well, is delicious gravy. Even if you weren’t “there” she’ll have you feeling as if you were.Throughout Clea writes in her winning style: hard-earned authority (without being annoying about it), flashes of humor, and a fine eye for detail. I cannot recommend ‘World Enough’ enough.

Everybody has a past.... Everybody has a past. Some are more memorable than others; some we would prefer to forget. My own past was rooted in the hippie movement and the music scene that went with it. Though WORLD ENOUGH’s Tara Wilton hit her crazy prime a few decades later in the clubs of the ‘80s, I can identify. I understand those push-pull relationships with once-upon-a-time friends. I get the compulsion to both renounce the past and embrace it. The dichotomy that runs throughout this story is eerily my own.In this multi-layered work, Tara, a one-time newshound now bored by her current job, finds herself pulled back through doors she thought were closed forever. A story about the old scene leads her to new information and the possibility that events of the past were not as she had imagined them to be at the time. The death of one of the old tribe raises questions—was it accidental, suicide, or murder?— and brings doubts about another death back in the day.Clea leads us slowly, purposefully, sometimes almost painfully through Tara’s thought process as she is drawn to uncover the facts, however grotesque. What happened? Where did it all go wrong? The world is dangerous when we begin to peel back the layers of its darkest secrets and reveal the raw, bleeding truth.

Rock And Roll This book is a new undertaking for Clea Simon as she moves into the underworld of Rock and Roll music twenty years ago. The MC Tara was accepted there but was really on the outside. Tara went for the music and didn't really know all the "dirt and drugs" that was occurring. Tara was an aspiring journalist and now has a job in the commercial world. She meets up with her editor at the time and he asked her to write a piece on the Rise and Fall of the Rock bands. As Tara begins to dig into the past, she finds her memory is not accurate.The story jumps between the present and the past. I find this form hard to read as There is no clear-cut line between the two decades. There are a couple of deaths which the police rule accidental. Are there more to these deaths and how will they effect Tara? I recommend this book.Disclosure: I received a free copy from Severn House through NetGalley for an honest review. I would like to thank them for this opportunity to read and review the book. The opinions expressed are my own.

Night life mystery A mystery that will plunge you into the nightlife club scene of Boston. But, Tara hearing about the death of Frank, finds herself wondering if it really was an accident. Hop on board for a thrilling page turner.