Spotlight for The Whyte Python World Tour by Travis Kennedy

“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

About THE WHYTE PYTHON WORLD TOUR:

Published:  June 24, 2025 by Doubleday

 It’s Los Angeles, 1986, and metal rules the world. For aspiring drummer Rikki Thunder, life is good—even if he is sleeping in a condemned paint store and playing with a band that’s going nowhere. But when he gets a shot to join L.A.’s hottest up-and-coming band, Whyte Python, Rikki’s young life turns up to 11. Soon he has a hit single scorching up the charts, and the new love of his life in the audience. Rikki couldn’t ask for anything more.

 

But good fortune can be deceiving. With the Cold War breathing its last gasps and American music blasting through the Iron Curtain, a youth revolution is taking hold—and a hair band is unknowingly playing host to the final battle for the hearts and minds of the Eastern Bloc. Rikki Thunder soon realizes there is a deeper web of influence propelling Whyte Python, and the stakes for his mission—to spread peace, love, and epic shredding across the globe—are far more dangerous than he could ever imagine.

 

Raucously funny and refreshing, The Whyte Python World Tour is a head-banger of a debut, steeped in ’80s music culture nostalgia and international suspense.

 

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About Travis Kennedy:  Travis Kennedy lives in Scarborough, Maine with his wife, Liv, and their two children, Ella and Cole. He has a long career in public service and policymaking, having worked for the Maine State Legislature for more than nine years and the United States Senate for five years. Since 2017, his day job is Director of Public Affairs for Cumberland County Government in Southern Maine.

His novel, Welcome to Redemption was the Grand Prize winner of the 2020/2021 Screencraft Cinematic Book Contest, and his short story, “Priceless,” was selected as a “Distinguished Mystery Story of 2018” in the Best American Mystery Stories series. His work has also been featured in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, the “Best New England Crime Stories” anthology,  McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the Haunted Waters Press literary journal and several others.