Murder at Birdland

In the fall of 2001, Martin Spencer—a fifty-one-year-old clinical psychologist from Topeka—faces three life-altering revelations in a single week: the death of his father, the shocking truth that his biological father—a jazz trumpeter—was murdered half a century earlier, and the discovery that he can travel through time using photographs. His journeys carry him to the heart of jazz itself: New York City’s 52nd Street in the late 1940s, at the height of the bebop era. There, he finds himself in the company of legends—Art Tatum, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Red Rodney—while navigating a dangerous web of mob ties, corrupt cops, and federal agents. Caught between past and present, music and murder, Martin must uncover the truth about his father’s death. But in chasing history, he also finds something unexpected: romance.