Book Review: The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers

Anke Berben is ready to tell all. A legendary model and style icon, she reveled in headline-grabbing romances with not one but three members of the hugely influential rock band the Midnight Ramblers. The band members were as famous for their backstage drama as for their music, and Anke is the only one who fully understands the tangled relationships, betrayals, and suspicions that have added to the Ramblers’ enduring appeal and mystique. That is most evident in the mystery around Anke’s role in the death of Mal, the band’s founder and Anke’s husband, in 1969.

When Mari Hawthorn accepts the job to work with Anke on her memoir, she is dead set on getting to the truth of Mal’s death. She has always been deft at navigating the fatal charms of celebrities, having grown up with a narcissistic, alcoholic father. As she ingratiates herself into the world of the band, she grows enchanted, against her better judgment, by these legendary rock stars. She knows she can’t get pulled in too deep, otherwise she’ll compromise her objectivity—and her integrity.

The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers, the debut novel by Sarah Tomlinson, was published February 13, 2024, by Flatiron Books.

What instantly attracted me to this novel was the angle of writing (albeit ghostwriting) and subject matter of a band tell-all. Combining these two are a perfect storm for me as a reader. I should have taken it as a warning, though, when much of history of the Midnight Ramblers was delivered as expositional details in chapter 1. Where was this going to go?

Turns out, Tomlinson draws upon her extensive experience as a ghostwriter to weave her story about Mari working as a ghostwriter for Anke's book. Writing books always advise write what you know. Tomlinson clearly is doing that here. We get a very good look into the ghostwriting process by walking in the shoes of a ghostwriter character who tries to salvage a project and more.

Given that the first part of the book consists of long conversations between two women, I appreciated that the author gave each a distinctive sounding voice. I clearly could tell when it was Anke speaking and when it was Mari speaking. Overall, I found Tomlinson's writing to be fairly solid.

Unfortunately, for me, I did not end up caring overall about most of the characters or the plot's direction. I found I had to force myself to work through to the end, just to see it resolved. I try to avoid DNF (did not finish) as much as possible. For the right audience, this book might work. It turns out I was not the right audience, even though there were elements in the synopsis that interested me. I just was not keen on how they played into the overall book.