Amy, 27

In 2011, when Amy Winehouse died in her London flat, the press quickly folded her into the so-called 27 Club, a name that came from a remark Kurt Cobain's mother made in 1994 after learning her son, Nirvana's frontman, had taken his own life. She admitted she had warned him against joining that grim company. The phenomenon refers to a run of celebrated musicians who died at exactly the same age, 27, and writers have treated it as anything from a curse to a sign written in the stars, with some reaching for numerology or conspiracy theories to explain it.

Howard Sounes sets those theories aside. His book examines six of the most famous members of the club, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Cobain and Winehouse, along with forty-four other figures from the music industry who died at the same age. The aim is to establish what, beyond chance, connects them.

Across six decades, the book traces the darker side of the music business, where excess, mental turmoil and self-destruction recur. Sounes strips away the legends and half-truths that have grown up around these six artists and builds a account from documented facts, showing the shared patterns that link these lives and deaths.