Reviews for The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers:
Publishers Weekly
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Tomlinson (Good Girl, a memoir) draws on her ghostwriting career for a breezy story about a woman who gets paid to write the memoirs of aging rock stars. Mari Hawthorn has grown tired of living in the shadow of her famous subjects. Her fortunes seem to be turning, though, when she gets an opportunity to coauthor a book with former model and socialite Anke Berben, whose mystique was amplified in the 1960s when she married Mal Walker, leader of the Midnight Ramblers, a fictional rock band analogous to the Rolling Stones in their popularity and libidinous excess. Like many famous rockers, Walker “lived too hard and died too young,” but mystery has always shrouded his death by drowning in 1969. Now Berben claims she’s willing to share the true story of what happened to her husband. Recognizing that this could be the big break she’s been desperate for, Hawthorn digs in deep to coax out the truth from Berben and Walker’s bandmates. Tomlinson ably parlays her knowledge of the ghostwriting trade into an entertaining tableau of rock and roll’s grit and glamour. Classic rock fans will find much to enjoy. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Feb.)
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
Mari, a struggling writer, believes she’s been handed the opportunity of a lifetime when she is hired to ghostwrite the memoir of former model Anke Berben, who is best known for her relationships with three different members of the world-famous rock band the Midnight Ramblers. Speculation still swirls around the band and Anke decades after the death of their lead singer, Mal, to whom Anke was married at the time he died. Mari delves into Anke’s story, determined to uncover the real cause of Mal’s death, but will getting to know the band members and the charming but mercurial Anke influence her objectivity? In her fiction debut, Tomlinson, the ghostwriter of many celebrity memoirs herself, ably demonstrates the fragile balance Mari must strike to earn her subjects’ trust while still uncovering the story readers want to hear. Comparisons to Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones & the Six (2019) are inevitable, but this novel is less a juicy, behind-the-scenes tell-all about a fictional band and instead an exploration of the many ways celebrities can wield their wealth and power, especially against each other.
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A ghostwriter finds herself pulled into the mysterious past of a legendary rock band. When ghostwriter Mari Hawthorn gets the opportunity to work with legendary model Anke Berben, she knows that this could be the boost her career needs. Anke is most famous for having had romantic relationships with three members of the Midnight Ramblers—one of the defining rock acts of the 20th century and still going strong today—and she needs someone to help tell her story. Mari, whose career has stalled, needs to be that somebody. She’s desperate for this job, but she finds herself immediately charmed by Anke—even as she works to uncover what really happened the night the band’s lead singer, who was married to Anke at the time, drowned in 1969. As Mari gets to know Anke, the band’s lead guitarist, Dante Ashcombe, and the rest of the musicians, she finds herself drawn into their world and eager to uncover the band’s mysteries. Tomlinson, a bestselling memoir ghostwriter herself, makes Mari’s job and desire to hunt down the truth feel realistic. As the prologue states, “Ghosts do it for three reasons: money, access, praise.” Although Mari starts out needing the money, it’s easy to understand why she soon wants to be part of the band’s inner circle. The plot itself, though, is quite slow-moving, likely because much of it takes place in conversation rather than action. An in-depth but sometimes repetitive look at the world of rock ’n’ roll. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
