The Blues Don't Care

Los Angeles in the 1940s. World War II is raging. But people find escape in the upbeat swing music of the black nightclub scene on Central Avenue. Bobby Saxon is one of the few white faces in a sea of black at the famous Club Alabam on Central. He comes to watch the Booker ‘Boom-Boom’ Taylor Orchestra—a swing band. But he doesn’t only want to watch—he wants to join the band. He’s pretty good on the 88s (the piano) and band-leader Booker lets him audition.
Bobby gets his wish and finds himself playing on a temporary basis with the band for the “swells” on the Apollo, a gambling ship, just outside the legal limits of U.S. waters off the coast. But soon all hell breaks loose when Hans Dietrich, a German man, doing business in America gets into a fight with the band’s sax player, James Christmas. After the band’s next set, Dietrich’s dead body breaks through a false ceiling in the ship’s ballroom. And James is the prime suspect.
The cops shut the ship down. And with the band unable to work now, Booker makes Bobby an offer: help clear James of the murder charges by playing detective and finding the real killer and he can have a permanent gig with the band. Booker thinks that Bobby, with his white skin and white privilege (though not a term used then) and boyish good looks, can go places Booker can’t to find the real killer, since he doesn’t trust the cops to do their job for a colored man.
Bobby’s investigation takes him on a labyrinthine journey through the worlds of nightclubs, gambling ships and gangsters, corruption, anti-Semitism and racism. He also comes across David Chambers, an old high school friend, who may or may not be involved, as well as the dead German’s secretary and her tough and seemingly crazy boyfriend, Sam Wilde.
Bobby’s determined to solve the case and get a permanent gig with the band. But he also needs to come to terms with his own double-life and secrets that he’s not ready to reveal to the world.