Death of a Baritone: A Music Lover's Mystery

Our likable amateur detective, Phoebe Mullins, has been hired as secretary at the Varovna Vocal Colony and Opera Workshop. Headed by former Met diva Anna Varovna (whose frequent malapropisms are quite amusing), the colony is located in an idyllic wooded area of East Hampton. But as the opera company prepares for a production of "Cosi fan tutte," there's trouble in paradise: Phoebe senses an atmosphere of unease among the group. And the affable, Valentinoesque baritone, Frank Palermo, a young man given to sudden enthusiasms, has become involved in the Children of Truth, a cult that believes in total candor no matter what the consequences, the theory being that doing away with all secrets will bring about world love and peace. After Frank, who has made no secret of his severe allergy to penicillin, is found dead of anaphylactic shock, Phoebe sets out to discover who has a secret worth killing for. The author has cleverly inserted a number of red herrings to lead the reader astray, but if you're alert, you can spot the real clues. Deft plotting, humor, eccentric and lifelike characters, well-written dialogue, and plenty of opera lore all combine to make this a very enjoyable cozy, especially for opera fans. I hope Ms. Sturges has a sequel on the way.

This is indeed a mystery for music lovers. At last. Not since the first Frost the Fiddler books, and before that the Paul Meyer books, have lovers of classical music been able to indulge their love of music and mystery simultaneously. What a find!Phoebe Angelopoulos Mullins, daughter of famous pianist Yannis, and widow of conductor Mischa (who was really full-Irish!) finds herself at 48 needing to find a career for herself, to earn her own money in her own right. Perilously, she learns a bit about WordPerfect, learns to drive a car, sub-lets her apartment in New York and sets off for a summer job in the Hamptons, which dematerializes before she gets there. But then, there appears on the horizon the Varovna Opera Colony, under the aegis of Anna Varovna, former soprano star at the Met, and Phoebe has found her summer home. Having spent her adult life (so far) meeting crowds of people, she uses the old trick of assigning pet names to folks to make future identification easier. Thus we get to meet the Jamaican Baryshnikov - Jason Lee Jones; the White Queen - Amanda St. James, and the Red Queen - Rita Michaels. Rita is married to the Stage Director - Theo Morse. The 'Piano Man', Larry Peterson, is a composer in addition to being the conductor. Various other personages enter and exit: Jenny Allen, girl of all work, Gerta Hofstetter who has been with Anna longer than anyone can remember, and of course -- the tenor! -- Stefan Kowalski. The baritone of the title is Frank Palermo, whose death is caused by an allergic reaction to penicillin. Who knew? Who could have used this information in such a way? And why?Suffolk County Homicide Lieutenant Saul Freed and his assistant (The Gaughin Princess), exotic Claire Delgado, are called in to untangle the multiple threads of this engrossing mystery novel; threads which include plagiarism, cults, professional jealousy -- as well as the other kind -- and even remnants of the Holocaust. In the end, however, its Phoebe's memory that pulls the pieces of the puzzle together, allowing her to correctly interpret the clues that have been misunderstood by everyone else -- including the Lieutenant. It may sound complex, but is no more so than a Mozart score, and will be as satisfying to the mystery lover, as the musical one is to the music lover!Set to the staging and words of Così fan Tutte by Mozart and Da Ponte, even the prodigy himself would have loved the word-play and subtle humor with which this book abounds! For myself, I can hardly wait for Death of a Pooh-Bah, in which Phoebe has moved upwards to the position of stage manager for the Northampton Repertory Company.