The last thing the members of Hall of Fame rock & roll band Blacklight need to hear is that ruthless tabloid biographer Perry Dillon is planning a tell-all history of their group. The issue hits hardest for English ex-pat guitarist JP Kinkaid; with his history of heroin addiction and deportation, his estranged wife, and his long-term relationship with a girl he met when she was a teenager, JP has the most to lose. Dealing with his multiple sclerosis doesn't make things any easier. When he sits down with Dillon, JP's main concern is to preserve both his own privacy and that of Bree Godwin, his fiercely protective longtime girlfriend. But it's obvious from the first question that Dillon is digging deep. And he's not planning to stop until he hits rock bottom. Dillon's looking for trouble, the kind of trouble that garners publicity and sells books. What he finds is the kind of trouble someone will go to any length to cover up, and that includes murder.

Welcome to the Plus One House Band's second set. A village girl on the Isle of Man disregards the rules of her people's bargain with their otherworldly neighbours, and pays the price. A young musician goes on a wild tour of America's parking lots as he follows his favourite band. A paralyzed soul singer reflects back on how he met his great love. A singer in a strange little underground club carries the world in her song. A damned soul makes a classic crossroads guitar swap deal between the devil and a musician, not knowing that the musician has an agenda of his own. A father and son, both flamenco guitarists, spiral down into madness and addiction. Here are fifteen stories that run from quiet vignettes to apocalyptic science fiction to chilling irony to raucous good fun, all linked together by the music each author offers. So grab a seat, order up something cold to drink, and settle in for a great gig.

When the Emir of Manaar offers Blacklight a huge sum to play a New Year's Eve show in his capital city, he's immediately refused. There are good reasons: the band's prior experience with al-Wahid and his decadent twin daughters, the razor-thin timing, a band member's impending rehab. But the Emir makes an offer they can't refuse, and Blacklight prepares to play the biggest live show in their history. From the moment their plane sets down in Manaar, guitarist JP Kinkaid and his wife Bree are aware of disturbing undercurrents beneath the formality and opulence. When their personal equerry is found with his throat slashed just days before showtime, Blacklight's head of security, Patrick Ormand, is barred from the investigation. As the civilised facade around the event begins to crumble, it becomes clear that sending a quarter of a million fans home happy will be a lot simpler than getting themselves out of Manaar alive.

A very unusual blues guitarist gets into a barroom brawl on a distant asteroid. An autistic boy playing air guitar to an audience only his brother can see. A soul singer, paralyzed in a car accident, dealing with the murder of his closest friend. A rock singer in the 1960s, discovering the various meanings of 'family values'. An ageing classical pianist with the ability to remain young and beautiful beyond the restrictions of the real world. A punk band, locked together in a club all night after the show, finding themselves one member short in the morning... Sixteen writers, from rising stars to award-winning and critically acclaimed veterans, have come together to provide a cross-genre spectrum of short fiction. The one thing every story has in common? Music. From science fiction to horror, from literary to mystery, there's something for everyone in Tales From the House Band, Volume 1.

When the Fog City Geezers sign a recording contract with Fluorescent Records, band founder JP Kinkaid makes an unusual decision: to record a live show as their first CD. Climbing into a tour bus named Magic with the band and his wife, Bree, he's expecting no more than the usual glitches and problems that happen when any band hits the road. What he's not expecting is a sudden series of interpersonal crises. Every one of those crises is linked to Fluorescent's signing of longtime thorn in JP's side, the disruptive and unpleasant bassist, Bergen Sandoval. By the night of the label's CD release party at an exclusive Hollywood nightclub, tensions within the Fluorescent artist family have reached breaking point. When Bergen dies in the club's bathroom of an apparent coke overdose, Blacklight security chief and retired homicide detective Patrick Ormand suspects the white powder contains more than just cocaine - and things suddenly look bad for one member of the band family.

The conclusion of Blacklight's exhausting Book of Days tour finds guitarist JP Kinkaid recuperating at home in San Francisco. As JP's local band, the Fog City Geezers, plans gigs at Marin County's 707 Club, the club is put up for sale. Blacklight, seeing an opportunity to preserve a classic venue, acquires the majority stake. But the minority ownership comes with strings attached. There are troubling questions about the source of the stake money. There's prickly, unpredictable promoter Norfolk Lind, whose son Curtis is romantically involved with Blacklight band baby Solange Hedley, now in cooking school in San Francisco. And Lind's partner, Esther Woodley, has some dark history of her own with JP's wife, Bree. The Geezers celebrate the opening of the newly refurbished 707 with a private show. But when the club is destroyed by arson, Blacklight's new security chief, retired homicide cop Patrick Ormand, must dig deep into the local music scene's murky past to find the truth.

The release of Blacklight's double CD, Book of Days, looks like business as usual. The relaxed tour showcases a revolutionary new set design, as well as Bombardiers keyboard ace Tony Mancuso along as a guest. No one can predict what happens next: the CD goes multi-platinum, generating the need for a very different kind of tour. At first, everything seems fine. It takes a while before guitarist JP Kinkaid realises something very dark is going on: a string of deaths, following Blacklight show nights. Things come to a head when a longtime member of Blacklight's extended touring family is killed. At the band's request, Homicide detective Patrick Ormand investigates, but uncovering the reason behind the deaths may be a lot easier than healing the wounds those deaths have caused.

When Blacklight guitarist JP Kinkaid is asked to introduce Delta session legend Farris "Bulldog" Moody as an Early Influences inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he's delighted. And when JP learns from young Cleveland music historian Ches Kobel that Bulldog is still alive and living in Southern Ohio, he jumps at the opportunity to meet his idol. Ches, who's working on a book about American blues players, brings JP and Bulldog together. The elderly black musician and the rock superstar form a deep, immediate bond, and JP learns more about the man whose music so influenced him. But when Ches is found dead outside the Hall of Fame, JP is sent his notes on the unfinished book. Those notes contain puzzling discrepancies in what Bulldog has told JP about himself and his history. As doubts rise about how-and why-Ches died, JP knows he needs to know the truth behind Bulldog's life, and behind Ches Kobel's death.

Newlywed superstar guitarist JP Kinkaid and his wife, Bree, head off to London for their honeymoon. The trip should be idyllic: take care of personal business in London, record a few songs, relax. Their honeymoon gets sidetracked when legendary director Sir Cedric Parmeley enters his 25-year-old rockumentary Playing in the Dark into competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and asks Blacklight to perform a free show at Frejus, near Cannes, to support it. But the film Parmeley screens the night before the Festival opens is not the film the band approved. In that ninety minutes of footage is evidence of an old hate crime, the only kind for which there's no statute of limitations. The men who perpetrated that crime have been hiding in plain sight in beautiful Provence. Their leader is a revenant from Homicide Lieutenant Patrick Ormand's past. And Ormand will stop at nothing to take him down--even if it means putting the band in the crosshairs of a sniper's scope on the red carpet at Cannes.