Following the success of From Here to Eternity, James Jones decided to pursue his love for jazz by writing a novel based on the life of French guitarist Django Reinhardt. Jones was living in Paris at the time and knew many musicians. He haunted the clubs talking with the likes of Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Lester Young. The more musicians he talked to, however, the more confused he became. There were conflicting stories about Reinhardt; the only consistent fact was that the guitarist had played incredibly beautful music. Perhaps realizing he could never quite bridge the gap between the audience and the bandstand, Jones abandoned the project.

Despite it's rich history, and colorful characters, few writers of fiction have attempted to enter the world of jazz. Dorthy Baker's Young Man With a Horn, James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," and John Clellon Holmes, The Horn, are notable exceptioins. More recent is Rafi Zabor's award-winning, The Bear Comes Home. Writing about music, jazz in particular, is difficult, but being a musician helps to portray the view from the bandstand.

With the Evan Horne series, I've tried to do just that, take the reader inside the head of a jazz musician and explore the concept of someone who suddenly can no longer do what he does best:play piano. I include many real musicians, or at least allude to them as Evan finds himself immersed in what have been actual events in jazz history within the framework of a crime novel. While they are hopefully entertaining, the Evan Horne series is also an attempt to illuminate for the reader some facets of the jazz life.

Andre Previs said, "the basic difference between classical music and jazz is the in the former the music is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being played." Perhaps the same can be said of jazz fiction.