My next psychological suspense is now available for pre-order! HOLD ME DOWN will be published by Polis Books on Oct. 5.
Here’s the description: A riveting work of dark suspense from acclaimed author Clea Simon Gal, a middle-aged musician, is back in Boston to play a memorial for her late drummer/best friend, when she finds herself freezing on stage at the sight of a face in the crowd. The next day, she learns that the man she saw has been killed – beaten to death behind the venue – and her friend’s widower is being charged in connection with his death. When the friend refuses to defend himself, Gal wonders why and, as the memories of begin to flood back, she starts her own informal investigation. As she does so, she must reexamine her own wild life, her perception of the past, and an industry that monetizes dysfunction in a dark tale of love, music, and murder.
HOLD ME DOWN is a standalone novel of suspense, set in the basement clubs and dark back rooms behind the stage lights of rock and roll stardom. Like 2017’s Massachusetts Book Awards “must read” World Enough, HOLD ME DOWN deals with love in all its forms, community, and rock and roll from a strong, if damaged female perspective.
Coming from Polis Books Oct. 5, 2021
“A hard-rocking riff of a novel, HOLD ME DOWN explodes with a passion for music while also probing the intimate betrayals buried under a haze of alcohol and pills. Simon tells her story from the perspective of an aging female star trying to understand where it all went wrong, expertly exploring how music seeks to embody truth, even when musicians hid their own pain behind the melodies.” – Joanna Schaffhausen, winner of the 2016 MWA/St. Martin’s Minotaur first crime novel award for The Vanishing Season“Clea Simon’s devastatingly powerful mystery hits you like a punch in the heart. About aging, regret, and women in rock and roll, it’s also about how no matter how hard you fight, some things are never behind you, be it deep love or a terrifyingly brutal assault, and that survival doesn’t always look like what you think it does. Gripping, truthful and provocative.” – Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is this Tomorrow
“HOLD ME DOWN is powerfully written and compulsively readable. Part murder mystery and part wistful history of a one-time rock star and her deeply buried secrets.”– Dave Zeltserman, award-winning author of over 20 crime, thriller, and horror novels, including Small Crimes, now a Netflix film