The Blue Guitar Nicholas Hasluck 1980

Dustjacket synopsis:
"The world of finance is a place where dreams and shady deals merge.

"Dyson Garrick, self-styled entrepeneur, beleives that his transistorised 'player guitar' will be the start of something new - music for the next generation.

"His flashy promotion of the invention is hampered by his desperate search for finance, the investigation of a previous deal and troubles at home. His mistress can see his qualities - wit, vitality and a kind of reckless optimism. But even that relationship is threatened by his obsession with success.

"Like so many innovators, Garrick is eventually faced with the dilemma: should he protect his dream or himself?"

Quotes:
"A vivid account of life in the contemporary hells of getting and spending." - Los Angeles Times

First Paragraph

The phone rang. Ben Keeton looked up, hoping it wouldn't ring again. His client, Mr Sable, lowered the bundle of photographs he had been dealing out across the desk and stared at the phone. The photograph uppermost on the desk was an aerial view of a large factory.

The phone rang again. A short, urgent signal.

'I told the girl no calls,' Ben said, reaching for it - covering the mouthpiece on the way up. 'Give me two seconds.'

The client nodded, retrieving the photographs of the factory.

'Absolutely no calls,' Ben said, addressing the girl on the switch. 'I meant it.'

But on the other end of the line all he heard was a twanging sound deep from the belly of a guitar. Or was it a banjo?

From the Penguin paperback edition, 1989.

This page and its contents are copyright © 2001 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: November 27, 2001.