Night Music: A Mystery

FROM OUR EDITORS

Stranded and short of funds in Milan, music scholar Matthew Pierce discovers a mysterious manuscript. If Pierce's suspicions are correct, this faded, scrawled document is a diary penned by the young Mozart. Knowing that the discovery of a long-lost Mozart journal would catapult him to fame and fortune, he sets out to authenticate it. Almost immediately, this student of music becomes ensnared in conspiracies and murderous intrigues of operatic proportions. Erudition and clever plot twists abound.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Stranded in Milan by a train strike, a down-on-his-luck music scholar finds a mysterious document. Could it be the diary Mozart kept when he was an adolescent, traveling through Europe with his father?" If authentic, the diary could catapult Matthew Pierce into wealth and fame. His search for the truth leads him into a dazzling world of Europe's most gifted musicians and wealthiest aristocrats. But the brilliance of his surroundings is clouded by intrigue, threats, and murder. Matthew becomes both searcher and prey, and the peril mounts. Traveling across Europe with an entourage of divas and gentry, Matthew unravels the fiendish plots that threaten him and his friends, while giving us the Mozart diary, a new and delightful insight into the world of one of the greatest musicians ever to have lived.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Mozart lovers are in for a treat, though others may be put off by the excruciatingly complicated plot of this debut mystery from musicologist Slater, author of In Mozart's Footsteps (1991), a scholarly study of the European travels of Mozart and his father, Leopold. En route to La Favorite, the lavish estate of Mozart aficionado Vicomte Ren de Laguerelle, Boston music scholar Matthew Pierce, out of a job and out of funds (as Mozart so often was), gets stranded in Milan by a strike. At an auction house he purchases a folio that includes what appears to be a diary kept by the young Mozart. If the diary is authentic, Matthew's future is golden, but his search for the truth leads him into a world of intrigue where devilish plots and gruesome death conspire to rob him of his sanity and his life. The start of each of six sections, which parallel Mozart's travels, offers the same gimmick: our hero agonizing to recover the memory of past events after a near-fatal attack. Slater's attention to historical detail is exquisite; his descriptive passages are poetic, even musical; yet excessive length and a surfeit of minor characters, however interesting, cry out for the editor's scalpel. That said, patient readers will find plenty to please: steamy sex, sleazy crooks, international money laundering schemes, rapturous musical events and, best of all, a plausible re-creation of the diaries of the young genius. (Oct. 1) Forecast: Word of mouth in the classical music community-the author's also a concert pianist-should make up for any weakness of sales within the mystery field. Those confused by the authorship of In Mozart's Footsteps (Harrison James Wignall) should know Slater has since legally changed his name. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Fusing the magic of Mozart with the literary suspense genre, first novelist Slater, a concert pianist and author of In Mozart's Footsteps, delves deeply into Mozartiana to deliver a picaresque tale that is lush if slightly overgrown. Resounding with light echoes of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and even Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, the story follows a young musicologist, poor, untenured, and idealistic, who happens upon an unidentified diary of Mozart's teenage travel. He needs a buyer to strike it rich and falls into a demonic circle of Mozart fanatics known to commit forgery and even murder to further their aims. In a spectacular near-death scene, Slater mirrors the satisfying climax of a great evening of opera. Any reader who can hum a few bars of Mozart will relish this oratorio of crime and commerce. For most large public library collections.-Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An exceptionally na￯﾿ﾽve American musicologist, Dr. Matthew Pierce, stumbles on an 18th-century manuscript that just might be a lost diary of Mozart￯﾿ﾽs. His attempt to get it authenticated earns him an invitation to a meeting of the mysterious "Fondation de l￯﾿ﾽArt eternal," an organization that provides funds for musicians and musicologists to pursue their interests. With high hopes and an empty bank account, Pierce arrives at the Place Stanislas in Nancy, a luxurious French palace filled with world-famous Mozart luminaries. During the black-tie reception on the first night, Pierce learns that the well-dressed Mozarteans may be less than well-behaved. Fortunately for him, the females display ample d￯﾿ﾽcolletage and an unaccountable interest in his fresh blood. Pierce alternately gapes at or lusts after the other guests, including two rival publishers of Mozart Millennium books, feuding operatic divas, a sadistic count, a Don Giovanni businessman, an ex-ballerina agent investigating organized crime for something like Interpol, and a narcoleptic baroness and her nymph granddaughter. It￯﾿ﾽs no big deal when someone sends Pierce an anonymous warning and breaks into his suitcase, but when the housemaid he particularly likes is strangled and the count and the two divas poisoned, the party is clearly over, sending him on an improbable journey across Europe, chasing Mozart manuscripts and dodging violence.

Slater￯﾿ﾽs debut outdoes even Mary Robert Rinehart in its reliance on the Had-I-But-Known formula. Not even his liberal use of aristocratic venues and titillating vignettes can compensate for an imbecilic hero in a picaresque fantasy with less credible plotting than The Magic Flute.