Last Song Sung

Author/Guide: David A Poulsen

Why a Booktrail?

1965: The mystery behind a singer whoshared the bill with Joni Mitchell in a Calgary coffee house

ISBN: 978-1459739864
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

On February 28, 1965, a young singer named Ellie Foster stepped into the alley behind The Depression, a Calgary folk club where she shared the bill with Joni Anderson, later to become famous as Joni Mitchell. During a cigarette break in the back alley, Ellie was forced into a car, and the musicians with her were shot and killed. The investigation that followed turned up no sign of the kidnappers, and Ellie Foster was never seen again.

Now, more than fifty years after the singer’s disappearance, Ellie’s granddaughter approaches Cullen and Cobb to try to find out what happened to her grandmother.

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Travel Guide

Welcome to Calgary

The author says:

I’ve always felt that “place” is very important in most of the fiction I read (and write) and perhaps even ore so in the mystery genre. So when I learned that the basement space (now a storage area) that once housed The Depression, the Calgary coffee house that Joni Mitchell and others played early in their careers still existed, my writer’s mind went to work. With Adam Cullen’s fascination with Canadian music it seemed a perfect fit.”

Joni Mitchell and the Depression

A strange name for a club especially the fact that many people apparently thought the name referred to the mood.

Founded by John Uren from Toronto, The Depression bar was a basement cafe with the authentic atmosphere of a coffee house. No liquor was allowed on the premises and the promise was that quality entertainment would be provided.
The bar opened six nights a week from 9pm and included themed nights such as Tuesday chess nights, Wednesday was surprise night where anything could happen and there were many music nights of course. It was hoped that its success would result in other coffee houses opening.

The Purple Perk

Another coffee house in Calgary to enjoy which also features in the novel.

Booktrailer Review

Susan: @thebooktrailer

This sang to me on so many levels and not jus because it’s got a musical theme and set at the heart of 1960s music. Joni Mitchell is in the story as the girl who gets shot at the start of the book is playing with her at the time in one of the most iconic coffee houses in Calgary. As well as being a fine cold case mystery, this novel has so much more – intrigue wrapped in a story few know perhaps know about and the way in which the author wraps the true life mystery into a fictional story is quite something. I now have an urge to put on a Joni Mitchell CD and go to Calgary in the search for coffee bars like this one. The dark atmosphere, the old fashioned times, the coffee houses and the whole idea about how and why the place was set up in the first place just really intrigued me from the start.

As well as this, the characters and plot really are intriguing too and the comedy is also interwoven in this crime story which gave it a real sense that you were there with the characters, knew them well and were part of the case itself. Yeah, I like this one. A great Canadian set read with a great sense of a misunderstood city.