This Toronto-based mystery thriller is steeped in music, murder, and municipal corruption. Kit Mason is a 30-year-old guitarist and songwriter who went blind from natural causes six years earlier. Aside from music, her closest ties are to a group of female friends from university who played with her on a softball team called the Ruthless Babes. The group has remained close through multiple marriages and relationships, but when one of them is murdered while jogging in a ravine, the Babes set out to find her killer.

The police are convinced that the perpetrator is a local serial killer, but Mason and her buddies believe there are other motives behind the murder and launch their own investigation. Meanwhile, the killer, an assassin-for-hire, sets out to cover his tracks as the Babes try to uncover links to a huge downtown redevelopment and a series of political payoffs. On the domestic front, Mason places a newspaper companion ad, and while she’s coping with the applicants from her ads a series of chance encounters at a recording session launches her on a new career as a singer/performer.

The complex plot is occasionally marred by unlikely actions, improbable coincidences, and too many scenes dealing with such domestic matters as hair fixations and dog care. But Shooting Straight in the Dark succeeds as a pleasant low-action thriller enhanced by a rambling and intriguing plot and author/musician Rick Blechta’s insider’s knowledge of the music business.