Joel Brown

Mirror Ball Man Joel Brown

"Bullet holes in a Life Is Great T-shirt. It was the kind of cheap irony I would have written a song about, normally. But it wasn't so funny when it happened to someone I knew." Singer Baxter McLean had one hit in the 1980s, "Mirror Ball Man," but he's barely scraped by as a barroom folksinger ever since. Now yuppies and developers are taking over the funky little harbor town of Libertyport, Massachusetts, where he lives. When he sings a protest song against a waterfront hotel project, Baxter finds himself the prime suspect in at least one murder. Solving the case himself is the only way out. On the bright side, the publicity might jump-start his career - and his love life.