It’s another Soundtrack Monday!
I’m working on the third Ghost Squad story, so naturally I’m thinking about the first two. Damage is a very desert-oriented book, being set in the Southwest; as a result, some Ottmar Liebert found its way onto the soundtrack. His Opium double album is great writing music, and I was glad to have it playing a few times while sussing out just exactly what Vince was doing.
I especially love the Nuevo México track. For all his tamped-down silence there’s a great deal going on inside Desmerais, and the music often gave me a key to it. There was a lot of exploratory writing, just poking at him to see how he’d respond, but he only opened up for real once the kidnap attempt in the parking lot was over. With that done, I could fill in a lot of earlier holes, which was a blessing.
Anyway, the third book is also desert-themed, but further north–set in Vegas, the music is correspondingly different. Tax is just as repressed as Dez ever was, though he handles it way differently. The lighting in the book is different, too; I’ve talked before how I see what’s happening in a story, and how specific series or books have their own lighting and color palettes. In Damage the light was a very thick gold, in Duty it’s much grayer and rainier since that story’s set in Western Oregon. In Gamble, it’s back to gold–but a thinner, springlike instead of summer sunshine color. The similarities in palettes across the three are greater than their differences, but it’s amazing what a change a simple light tint can do.
There’s one more book in the series–Grey’s story, which is much closer to the East Coast. I’m sure that’ll change its color and its music, but that’s a problem for a different day.