You are the music while the music lasts. - T. S. EliotKurt Newton is an writer who is no stranger to the darkness found in the hearts of the human condition. With his collection, THE MUSIC OF MURDER, he carves out his place among the very best.In the novella "The Brainpan Concerto," a unique style of a serial killer terrorizes the quiet corner of Connecticut as a pair of local detectives rush to uncover the fiend's identity and silence his symphony of death before he can kill again...In "The Bleeding of Mary Cross," it's blood that carries the music of murder for a young teen and her accomplice as they listen to the voices in their head and perform acts unthinkable...In "The Freak Hunter's Casebook," "The Wedge" and "The Mole Trap," it's love that provides the twisted melodies that haunt their story's protagonists...And in "Visits with Mother," "Anatomy of a Betrayal" and "The Red Leaf," it's madness that sings a song of death and depravity.These stories run the gamut of thrills, chills and...spills, as both predator and prey, the pursued and the pursuer, countdown to their inevitable coda.