Frequency of the Dart

Freelance live-sound engineer Zadie Fenner has zero patience for amateur musicians, venue politics, or shoddy ground wiring. She only cares about clean frequency response and keeping subwoofers properly phase-aligned. But when Declan Vowles, the indebted owner of Bristol's subterranean warehouse club The Iron Basin, collapses dead across a monitor wedge seconds before soundcheck, Zadie's meticulous world fractures. Shady redevelopment investors immediately claim her high-voltage amplifiers delivered a fatal shock, intending to seize the venue, scrap her custom sound rig, and collect hefty council demolition subsidies. To clear her gear and keep her livelihood intact, Zadie uses calibrated measurement microphones and real-time audio spectrum analyzers to uncover the physical truth: Declan was struck by an acoustic-triggered pneumatic dart hidden inside an overhead bass horn. Navigating Bristol's eccentric underground music scene, hostile private security, and ruthless land grabbers, Zadie must out-listen and out-engineer a ruthless killer who turns pure low-frequency pressure into murder.