Cruel Music : The Third Baroque Mystery [Library Binding]

Beverle Graves Myers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2006

Tito Amato returns from an operatic tour expecting to relax with his family. Instead he finds his merchant brother Alessandro imprisoned on a trumped-up smuggling charge, a capital crime in 1740 Venice. The senator who controls Alessandro's fate is determined to have a Venetian as the next pope. He forces Tito to Rome to sing at the villa of a powerful, music-loving cardinal who will control the coming papal election.
Spying as he serenades Cardinal Fabiani and his guests, Tito peers into the dark mirror of Roman politics. Pope Clement XII is sinking fast, and two candidates emerge as leading contenders for St. Peter's throne. Will Fabiani support the highborn Venetian whose secret passion is tinkering with electrical experiments? Or the humble cardinal with the gift of healing and a mysterious past?
The discovery of a beautiful corpse in Fabiani's garden complicates Tito's mission. Fabiani believes that a member of his household killed the young maid in a fit of madness, but Tito follows clues that indicate a more complex motive, assisted by his irrepressible manservant Benito and Englishman Gussie Rumbolt. From the heights of the Janiculum Hill to the muddy waters of the Tiber, from a cozy Trastevere cookshop to the chilly corridors of the Quirinal Palace, the trio wrestles with events that could change the course of history. Can Tito stop the killer and affect the election before Pope Clement takes his last breath? Or will Alessandro face the scaffold?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Myers's third mystery to feature soprano Tito Amato, a renowned castrato in 18th-century Italy, gets off to a slow start, but the pace soon picks up. Tito finds himself in Rome, singing in the house of Cardinal Lorenzo Fabiani. Chez Fabiani is abuzz with papal politics—Pope Clement XII's on his deathbed, and the two men most likely to replace him need Fabiani's support if they are to prevail. When Fabiani's mother's maid turns up strangled in Fabiani's garden, Fabiani covers up the crime, but Tito, worried he'll be falsely implicated should the corpse come to light, decides to get to the bottom of things. His investigation leads him into fascinating Roman subcultures—communities of goddess worshipers, who practice ancient paganism right under the church's nose, and church leaders who are more interested in natural science than theology. Myers (Interrupted Aria) litters the book with coy references to the castrato's surprising sex life, but leaves the details to the reader's imagination. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

Eighteenth-century Rome provides a lush yet sinister atmosphere for a mystery that draws together two parallel worlds within the Eternal City: the castrati, the male opera singers who were physically altered in boyhood to preserve their heavenly singing power, and the Holy See, which, as this story opens, is experiencing political shifting as the old pope is soon to expire and candidates vie to succeed him. Tito Amato, a famous Venetian opera singer, is forced by a powerful Venetian senator to decamp to Rome to become the house singer to a highly influential cardinal, Lorenzo Fabiana, who can pretty much control the choice of who is to be the next pope. But Tito's real mission is to spy on the goings-on in the Holy See and help advance a Venetian candidate for the papal throne. Naturally, murder happens, and the result is a rich, full story even non-mystery-reading opera lovers will respond to. Interesting to read alongside Anne Rice's compelling nonmystery novel about the castrati, Cry to Heaven (1982). Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Library Binding: 303 pages
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (September 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590582306
• ISBN-13: 978-1590582305
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,825,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Beverle Graves Myers fell in love with opera at a marionette production of Rigoletto when she was nine years old. Around the same time, she discovered Agatha Christie and hasn't stopped reading mysteries since. Now, Bev enjoys mixing murder, music and intrigue in writing her Baroque Mystery series from Poisoned Pen Press. Set in dazzling, decadent 18th-century Venice, her novels feature Tito Amato, an opera singer with a stellar talent for sleuthing. Bev also writes short fiction set in a variety of times and places. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Futures, Woman's World, and numerous anthologies. Bev's work has been nominated for the Macavity, Derringer, Kentucky Literary Awards. A retired psychiatrist, Bev now writes full time from her home in Louisville, Kentucky. Visit her website at www.beverlegravesmyers.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another good mystery from Ms. Myers., September 28, 2006

By 

PJ Coldren (Saint Helen, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cruel Music : The Third Baroque Mystery (Library Binding)

Pope Clement XII is slowly dying. The behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing at the Vatican is intense. State Inquisitor of Venice Senator Montorio wants someone he can trust on the scene, spying for him and actively promoting the candidacy of his choice. To get this trusted spy, he hauls Alessandro Amato in on false charges of salt smuggling. If convicted, Alessandro will be killed. This is enough to convince his brother, castrato Tito Amato, to make the trip. Not willingly, mind you.

When Tito gets to Rome, there is one pleasant surprise. His love from INTERRUPTED ARIA, Liya, is in Rome. They renew their friendship, which Tito would like to see become far more than that. While doing the bidding of Senator Montorio, Tito becomes an unwilling (again) accomplice to the murder of Gemma, a maidservant. In order to keep from being arrested for that murder, Tito is coerced by the head of another faction to spy and promote a different candidate. Life is very complicated for Tito, who just wants to make lovely music and have a lovely wife.

CRUEL MUSIC, while set in the baroque period in Rome, deals with emotions that know no time. Greed, power, lust . . . the Vatican has never had a monopoly on those things. While this is definitely a historical mystery, the issues addressed are as current as any election, the politicking just as intense then as now. CRUEL MUSIC is a testament to Graves' talent as a writer; she makes "then" interesting, educational, and entertaining.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fascinating third Baroque mystery, September 3, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cruel Music : The Third Baroque Mystery (Library Binding)

Early in 1740 following an exhausting tour of the continent, famous castrato Tito Amato returns to Venice to relax with his family. However his respite is short as Chief of Constabulary Messer Grande arrests Tito. Soon afterward Senator Antonio Montorio explains that with Pope Clement XII near death, the Cardinals will select a replacement between his brother Cardinal Stefano and Cardinal Di Noce. Whomever Cardinal Lorenzo Fabiani supports will become the next pope. Tito is to sing for the music loving Fabiani and learn who he backs or his family will suffer.

Tito heads to Rome where he provides performances while staying at the home of Cardinal Fabiani. The singer quickly learns that the only topic amidst the residents and servants of the house is the next pope. However, someone strangles to death a beautiful maid. While Fabiani assumes a family member is the killer and decides to cover up the homicide, houseguest Tito and his two person entourage fear that they will be left singing confessions to the murder. They investigate which leads them to some underground Roman groups.

The third Baroque mystery contains an interesting whodunit, but that takes a back seat to the insightful look at Papal politics in the middle of the eighteenth century. What is fascinating is the senator's explanation that a Venetian needs to sit on the throne so that patronage can be earmarked for his city. Also appealing are the underground cultures that thrive within walking distance of the Vatican as sects of ancient pagan worshipping is prevalent and biologists, physicists and chemists abound. Though the plot takes its time to set the stage, it is worth the wait as the audience will gain a grasp on the political patronage swapping and once in Rome Tito does not do what the Romans do as he investigates.

Harriet Klausner

5.0 out of 5 stars A Plot! Wow!, July 20, 2007

By 

Farinelli - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cruel Music : The Third Baroque Mystery (Library Binding)

Finally a book with a plot that gives the hero a huge challenge and has him work his way out of it through his own wits. I've read too many so-called mysteries lately that are solved by luck and coincidence. Tito Amato is a fascinating detective, and the background of baroque Italy is recreated in lush detail. Now, I'll go back and read the first two books in the series.