Dashboard Elvis Is Dead [TRADE PAPER ]

A failed writer connects the murder of an American journalist, a drowned 80s musician and a Scottish politician’ s resignation, in a heart-wrenching novel about ordinary people living in extraordinary times.

Renowned photo-journalist Jude Montgomery arrives in Glasgow in 2014, in the wake of the failed Scottish independence referendum, and it’ s clear that she’ s searching for someone.

Is it Anna Mason, who will go on to lead the country as First Minister? Jamie Hewitt, guitarist from eighties one-hit wonders The Hyptones? Or is it Rabbit – Jude’ s estranged foster sister, now a world-famous artist?

Three apparently unconnected people, who share a devastating secret, whose lives were forever changed by one traumatic night in Phoenix, forty years earlier…

Taking us back to a school shooting in her Texas hometown, and a 1980s road trip across the American West – to San Francisco and on to New York – Jude’ s search ends in Glasgow, and a final, shocking event that only one person can fully explain…

"Without a doubt, David F. Ross’s most ambitious novel to date. . . the Kilmarnock-based author stepping out of his comfort zone to write in the voice of a mixed-race Texan woman–in prose which, weirdly, often flows more naturally than the Glesca patter of his Scottish band, The Hyptones. He’s on searingly good form. . . A compelling story." —Herald Scotland.

David F. Rosswas born in Glasgow in 1964 and has lived in  Kilmarnock for over 30 years. He is a graduate of the Mackintosh School of Architecture at Glasgow School of Art, an architect by day, and a hilarious social-media commentator, author and enabler by night. His debut novelThe Last Days of Discowas shortlisted for the  Authors Club Best First NovelÓb