Books › The Armageddon Rag
The Armageddon Rag
First published 1983 · 528 pages
A dark, hallucinatory road trip through the ashes of the 1960s counterculture, where rock and roll is literally a matter of life, death, and demonic resurrection.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like putting on a scratched vinyl record that plays a familiar, yet deeply unsettling, tune. It is a steady, atmospheric descent into the dark underbelly of 1960s nostalgia, blending the gritty realism of a hardboiled murder mystery with creeping, psychedelic horror. The narrative is steeped in the melancholic ache of lost idealism, capturing the exact moment when the peace-and-love generation curdled into something cynical and dangerous. The prose is sensory and evocative, making you smell the stale cigarette smoke and hear the deafening, apocalyptic wail of a guitar solo. It will thoroughly delight fans of dark, genre-bending fiction who are drawn to stories about the corrupting power of music, the ghosts of the counterculture, and the terrifying realization that the past never really dies.
- Mood
- hallucinatory
- dread-soaked
- melancholic
- gritty
- Tone
- nostalgic
- cynical
- dark
- reflective
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- death of the counterculture · disillusionment · dark side of nostalgia · corrupting power of music · loss of youthful idealism
- The writing
- Gritty and evocative, blending hardboiled detective tropes with psychedelic, sensory-rich descriptions of music and memory.
- The arc
- Begins in cynical disillusionment, descends into a surreal, nostalgic fever dream, and culminates in a desperate confrontation with the ghosts of the past.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love dark, genre-bending mysteries steeped in rock-and-roll history, 1960s counterculture, and creeping supernatural dread.
Content notes
- murder
- drug use
- violence
- occult themes
- gore
About the book
One-time underground journalist Sandy Blair has come a long way from his radical roots in the '60s--until something unexpectedly draws him back: the bizarre and brutal murder of a rock promoter who made millions with the '60s band the Nazgûl. Now, as Sandy sets out to investigate the crime, he finds himself drawn back into his own past--a magical mystery tour of the pent-up passions of his generation. For a new messiah has resurrected the Nazgûl and the mad new beat may be more than anyone bargained for--a requiem of demonism, mind control, and death, whose apocalyptic tune only Sandy may be able to change in time.--From publisher description.
Description from Open Library.
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