Publishers Weekly
04/14/2025
During the waning years of the Cold War, the CIA—in the person of blonde, bodacious junior agent Amanda Price—gets into bed with an up-and-coming L.A. metal band as part of a covert op to foment pro-democracy rebellion behind the Iron Curtain, in Kennedy’s bold if uneven debut. Undercover as Tawny Spice, staffer for a nonexistent music magazine, Amanda targets Rikki Thunder, a talented but emotionally starved drummer. Within weeks of their first hookup, Amanda manages to squeeze Rikki into the lineup of buzzy band Whyte Python. While Amanda and Rikki’s faux-romance blossoms, behind the scenes there’s a dead-serious CIA team toiling on every aspect of an operation designed to catapult Whyte Python to the top of the charts and send them on an arena tour of the eastern bloc. Newcomer Kennedy nimbly heightens suspense via numerous twists, including the apparent presence of a mole close to the band, without neglecting the story’s ample comic possibilities. Still, the tone aims for something like the gonzo heights of Tim O’Brien’s America Fantastica and comes up short. A diverting dive into the paranoid past, this picaresque rolls merrily along without ever really rocking. Agent: Yfat Reiss Gendell, YRG Partners. (June)
From the Publisher
A rock ’n’ roll thrill ride. . . . The Whyte Python World Tour feels like a cross between a harrowing episode of Behind the Music and a Roger Moore–era James Bond flick. Heavy metal icon Rikki Thunder’s satirical memoir is sweeter than cherry pie and better than a prescription from Dr. Feelgood! You need to read it.”
—Ernest Cline, bestselling author of Ready Player One
“Travis Kennedy is too fiendishly clever for his own damn good. As he’s perfectly satirizing the hair-metal scene on the very first downbeat, you’re strapping yourself in for a wild ride. . . and suddenly he spikes your drink and cranks the Marshall stack to 20. Outrageous fun. Outrageous twists. Just outrageous, period!”
—Lincoln Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Sex, thugs, and rock 'n' roll! If Iron Maiden had made a James Bond movie it would have been Travis Kennedy's The Whyte Python World Tour, an antic thriller that spins the shiniest metal videos of the1980s with cliffhanging adventure movie in which an unsuspecting heavy metal band is infiltrated by the CIA and becomes a secret weapon in the final days of the Cold War. Heads are banged, fists raised, and the KGB and Stasi are no match for the power of rock 'n' roll.”
—Peter Ames Carlin, New York Times bestselling author of Bruce and The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.
“The Whye Python World Tour has everything: the glam rock satire of This Is Spinal Tap; the cloak-and-dagger thrills of Bridge of Spies; and a hero you'll want to climb over the hood of a car in a leopard-print bikini for. The only thing missing is a parental advisory sticker: WARNING: THIS BOOK ROCKS HARD.”
—Kat Rosenfield, bestselling author of No One Will Miss Her
“Hilarious, fast-paced, and thoroughly debauched. The Cold War was a lot weirder—and funnier—than we knew.”
—Cory Doctorow, author of Walkaway
“A heavy metal drummer is recruited by the CIA to help topple the Eastern Bloc with the power of rock.... This offbeat gem does for metal dudes what Daisy Jones & the Six does for the yacht-rock crowd. A nostalgic, headbanging comedy about rock ’n’ roll refugees.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"Kennedy nimbly heightens suspense via numerous twists... without neglecting the story’s ample comic possibilities.... A diverting dive into the paranoid past."
—Publishers Weekly
“Top Secret! meets This is Spinal Tap… GenXers, metalheads, and fans of spy thrillers alike will enjoy this delightfully silly and suspenseful Cold War-era adventure.”
—Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
2025-03-22
In 1986, a heavy metal drummer is recruited by the CIA to help topple the Eastern Bloc with the power of rock.
This weird, wry caper is built from bits and pieces of lore from both rock ’n’ roll and the Cold War, not least the persistent rumor that the Scorpions hit “Wind of Change” was secretly written by the CIA. Richard Henderson may be an amiable, unemployable loser during LA’s waking hours, but as Rikki Thunder, he’s channeling his inner John Bonham in a dead-end band going nowhere during the golden age of hair bands. His fortunes change when he meets Tawny Spice, a miniskirt-bedecked vision whose own alter ego is Amanda Price, an undercover CIA agent freshly assigned as a punishment to the agency’s secretive Project Facemelt. The agency’s scheme is to insert Rikki into one of the country’s fastest-rising glam-pop bands and send them on a youth-corrupting tour of the Soviet republics, complete with a pro-democracy anthem, “Tonight, for Tomorrow.” One minor assault later, Rikki is the new drummer in Whyte Python and brothers in arms with the group’s diva-esque lead singer, Davy Bones; closeted and spectral axeman, Buck Sweet; and pleasant-but-dumb bassist, Spencer Dooley. “It’s my understanding that they rock,” says Amanda’s uptight boss, Deputy Director Ed Lonsa, checking his notes. “Yes, they rock hard.” It helps that the other players are even more outlandish—for example, there’s Officer Boone, who kind of digs writing the lyrics, among other suspects in an agency mole hunt. Meanwhile, an East German general plans to cut the Whyte Python world tour short permanently in Berlin. Packed with cameos from heroes of glam metal like Steven Tyler and Bret Michaels, musical montages and lyrics, and a juvenile humor that winks at, rather than worships its subjects, this offbeat gem does for metal dudes whatDaisy Jones & the Six does for the yacht-rock crowd.
A nostalgic, headbanging comedy about rock ’n’ roll refugees.
