Music is at the heart of Dead Man Singing. It’s not just that the main character is a faded, jaded rock star, I also tried to make the music an integral part of the storytelling. You don’t have to know the songs in order to enjoy the book, but if you do there’s a whole extra dimension to the book. Songs are used as plot devices, as opportunities to show something about Dave’s character and, at times, to foreshadow things that are going to happen later in the book. Getting that side of the book just right was a lot of fun! Olly Hopper-Pay and Andy Stock (pictured above) did a fantastic job of recreating that, joining in with my reading from the book at the book launch, but I wanted to give other readers the opportunity to have something of that experience.

I’ve curated two Spotify playlists to go with the book. The first one, Dead Man Singing, includes (nearly) all the songs mentioned in the book, in order. To avoid plotspoiling, you might want to leave that one until you’ve finished the book, although you could also dip into it while reading if you want to check out a particular song when it crops up. The other playlist, Dave Masters 100, features one song from each of the 100 albums that Dave takes with him to his new life after his ‘death’. The songs are arranged chronologically, starting with some early Bob Dylan and mid-period Beatles and going all the way up to Texas’ 1989 debut album, which I think would have appealed to Dave. For what it’s worth, when I listen to that playlist I tend to put it on shuffle rather than go through it systematically – there’s more than six hours of music to get through on that one, but it’s all good – Dave has got fantastic taste in music. Enjoy.