Heartstrings in B-flat Minor

Slow, methodical pacing, punctuated by flashbacks, bring the novel’s eeriness forth.
Scott Johnson’s erotic thriller Heartstrings in B-flat Minor focuses on a charismatic doctor as he ensnares his latest
target.
Sheryl Taylor, a down-on-her-luck tour guide, ushers a group out of Cairo, barely escaping violent riots. She returns
home in desperation. Her finances are circling the drain, her future prospects with them. The cause? Sinister Dr.
Sterling Jackson, who frequently forces desperate people toward irreversible ends and is never caught for his deeds.
Jackson is a master con man, adept at hypnotic suggestion and subtle persuasion. He has several women on his
hook, but he focuses his attention primarily on Sheryl. Her life collapses around her as Jackson pushes her to a
malicious conclusion.
Heartstrings in B-flat Minor is a grimy gem, a story whose progressions are upsetting to digest, especially as it follows
its troubled lead, who does her best to avoid veering onto a dark path. As Taylor attempts to break free of Jackson,
her movements alternate between being bitterly hopeful and disastrous.
Taylor is aware of her missteps; despite glimpsing Jackson’s true nature, she falls deeper and deeper under his spell.
She is a thoroughly written character, and emotional investment is likely; it is painful to watch her struggle.
Jackson is a chilling antagonist. Examples of his tightening grasp around Taylor result in visceral reactions. The text
breathes life into his character, and he is all too convincing as he sets himself upon unsuspecting women. His
methods are meticulous, and his destructive progression holds attention.
The underlying story is straightforward. Slow and methodical pacing, punctuated by flashbacks into both leads’
intertwined histories, bring its eeriness forth. Though the book’s action is light, its conclusion is surprising, tense, and
taut with suspense.
Dialogue hampers the flow. Characters’ voices are not individualized, and it is often difficult to discern who is talking,
despite frequent identifiers. Out-of-place accents further interrupt the work. Conversations become bland and blur
together.
The novel may require a trigger warning for some in its audience, especially as one of Jackson’s trademark moves
involves coercing his targets into suicide. In the text, suicide methods are detailed, and while this supports the villain’s
characterization, it results in some gratuitous darkness; the acts might have been left in secrecy and still maintained
their sinister edge.
Heartstrings in B-flat Minor is a tautly paced, shudder-inducing dark thriller.

A sociopath’s career of scamming women has a devastating outcome in this psychological drama.
In Johnson’s debut novel, charlatan Sterling Jackson poses as a doctor. Now in his mid-40s, he’s spent more than half of
his life financially and romantically deceiving women, all of whom “have been plain suckers in Sterling’s conniving
eyes.” His history with Sheryl Taylor, a “head-turning,” 40-something blonde, began in the year 2000 when they worked
together at a cosmetics factory the summer before her senior year in college. She lived on Chicago’s wealthy North
Shore; he grew up in the Cabrini-Green housing project but later moved to a building owned by his Uncle Austin. Austin
was a career confidence man who taught his nephew to seek out gullible women who sought “to turn around troubled
souls.” When Sterling told Sheryl that he needed $500 to get his cousin out of jail, she willingly opened her checkbook.
In truth, he needed the money to pay for an abortion for another co-worker, whom he’d impregnated. Six years later, he
tracked Sheryl down again and accompanied her when she traveled to Jamaica on business, hoping to fleece her into
“investing” in a nonexistent clothing company. Once on the island, Sheryl falls hard for the con man, unaware he’s also
seducing the teenage sister of a Rastafarian man who’s teaching him hypnotism. Sheryl eventually gives all her money to Sterling, hoping for financial and relationship payback. Readers will likely have a hard time relating to Sheryl’s feelings
for the despicable Sterling. It also seems very unlikely that none of the victims of Sterling’s scams, particularly after the
advent of the internet, know enough to do any research on him. However, the author still delivers a highly readable, if
frustrating, tale complete with memorable descriptions, as when one character “yawns with a hippo’s ferocity.” The book
culminates with a horrific final chapter that goes on unmercifully too long—much as the main couple’s relationship
does.
A sad but engaging tale of a woman who’s dead-set on redeeming an unredeemable man.