There’s something about a mask. Not the ones we wore in the pandemic for protection, but the full-face ones we wear for…well, for what, exactly? Disguise? Fancy Dress? Criminal Acts?
I hadn’t given masks much thought until I went to a concert in 2019 at Shepherds Bush Empire with my wife. It was to see Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets. Nick Lowe we were familiar with (I’d been a fan since his Brinsley Schwarz days) but we didn’t know much about Los Straitjackets. It came as a surprise, then, to discover that they performed in Mexican wrestling masks. And it came as a particular surprise for my wife, who chose this night to reveal to me a lifelong fear she had hitherto kept to herself. You’ve guessed it. Masks. My wife had a lifelong fear of masks.
Apparently it’s not that unusual, and there’s even a name for it. Masklophobia. It’s an irrational fear of masks, mascots and people in costumed clothing, and symptoms associated with the condition include sweating, screaming, shaking and crying. Luckily my wife displayed none of these that night at the Shepherds Bush Empire (had she done so it might have been construed merely as a Beatlemania-like enthusiasm for Nick Lowe) but it did make for an interesting evening.
And it did start me thinking about masks.
During the pandemic the mask became an everyday object. Omnipresent. Functional. Necessary. I made no connection between the things we carried with us everywhere and the Mexican wrestling masks of Los Straitjackets.
But when, after the pandemic, I chanced upon the TV programme ‘The Masked Singer’ my thoughts went back to that Nick Lowe concert and the germs of an idea for the next Garibaldi novel were planted.
What about a Masked Band?
Why not take the idea of The Masked Singer – individual celebrities singing in disguise – and extend it to The Masked Band – a group of celebrities playing in disguise?
And as it was to be a DI Garibaldi novel, why not make those celebrities Barnes residents, and why not have them playing a small-scale local venue, like The Bull’s Head.
So that’s what I did. A band of celebrities playing in masks to keep their identities hidden. They’ve performed under a variety of names and in a variety of masks but for the gig which starts the action of ‘The Masked Band’ they’re wearing masks of Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, David Bowie and Debbie Harry and they’re calling themselves The Okay Boomers.
The next morning a man is found dead at the house where they held their post-gig party. It looks like murder, and Garibaldi has some questions to ask. Why was the dead man wearing the Mick Jagger mask? And why have the rest of the masks disappeared?
When members of the Okay Boomers are attacked by someone in those very masks, Garibaldi closes in on the celebrity group, and discovers other things they’ve been hiding.