Writing a Mystery: Chapter Titles/Playlist A Killer Among Friends

In my debut novel, The Godfather of Dance, I used song titles to name each chapter, which suited a novel set in the ballroom dance world. Reader feedback about this was positive, so it made sense to continue the style for the second Jade Riley mystery, A Killer Among Friends. It also matched the story because the second point of view character is a drummer in a rock band.

My choice of songs has proved an interesting point for discussion on radio interviews, where I’m often asked to choose a song or two to play. I’ve discussed these ideas with the fabulous Marg Attley on her show Quiet Please There is a Lady Onstage on Radio Mansfield, and with William Bond and Maureen Andrew on their show, The Breeze, on Southern FM.

When the books first came out with Wings ePress, I didn’t mention in the book that the chapter titles were song titles, so many readers missed this nuance. In an in conversation at Ink Bookshop, the bookshop owner, Charlotte Lindsay suggested I create a Spotify list and put a QR code to it at the start of the book so readers can listen along. When the books were re-released with Next Chapter, I implemented this idea. If you’d like to listen on Spotify, this is the link: A Killer Among Friends on Spotify.
For The Godfather of Dance, see The Godfather of Dance on Spotify.
For The Man in the Dam, see The Man in the Dam on Spotify.

For reference, I’ve listed the songs I used here, so you can hear what I had in mind.

Chapter	Song Title	Artist
1	We Go Together	Grease soundtrack
2	No News is Good News	Carpool
3	Mamma Mia	Abba
4	And All That Jazz	Chicago soundtrack
5	Be Prepared	The Lion King soundtrack
6	Zorba the Greek Dance	Zorba the Greek soundtrack
7	The Little Drummer Boy	Bing Crosby
8	Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing	Chris Isaak
9	Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap	AC/DC
10	Private Investigations	Dire Straits
11	House of Cards	TV Series main title theme
12	Life is a Highway	Rascal Flatts
13	Only The Good Die Young	Billy Joel
14	Life on the Edge	Eli
15	Mr Policeman	Brad Paisley
16	Sunday Morning Coming Down	Johnny Cash
17	Complicated	Avril Lavigne
18	Mister Cellophane	Chicago soundtrack
19	Tainted Love	Soft Cell
20	Empty Chairs at Empty Tables	Les Miserables soundtrack
21	They Both Reached for The Gun	Chicago soundtrack
22	Memory	Cats soundtrack
23	Warning Sign	Coldplay
24	In the City	Eagles
25	Rumor Has It	Reba McEntire
26	Don’t Stand So Close to Me	The Police
27	I Want to Break Free	Queen
28	Angry Young Man	Billy Joel
29	Under Pressure	Queen & David Bowie
30	Stand By Your Man	Tammy Wynette
31	Time Warp	The Rocky Horror Show soundtrack
32	Glory Days	Bruce Springsteen
33	Twisted Logic	Coldplay
34	Fight Song	Rachel Platten
35	Everybody Hurts	R.E.M.
36	The Lion’s Den	Grace VanderWaal
37	Who’s the Thief?	Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
38	Cell Block Tango	Chicago soundtrack
39	Aftershock	Macky Gee and Stuart Rowe
40	Money, Money, Money	Abba
41	Jigsaw	Conan Gray
42	Headlong	Queen
43	Bad to the Bone	George Thorogood & The Destroyers
44	Shut Up and Drive	Rihanna
45	Hammer to Fall	Queen
46	Death Defying	Hoodoo Gurus
47	I’m Sorry	John Best (NB. This has never been released.)

I hope you enjoy this playlist. If you had to choose a song for the current chapter of your life, what would it be?

Next time: an interview by Sophia Voukelatos, Kirsten Alexander on After the Fall.
Next post about Writing a Mystery: Chapter Titles/Playlist The Man in the Dam.
To see the song titles for The Godfather of Dance, see Writing a Mystery: Chapter Titles/Playlist The Godfather of Dance.