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Death and the Maiden by Frank Tallis (view source)
Revision as of 13:39, 23 August 2020
, 13:39, 23 August 2020no edit summary
The musical connection is more important in this book than in the Mitchell mystery story. The whole of Tallis' Viennese murder mystery is tied up in music.
The dead maiden , in this case , is not that much of a maiden. Ida Rosenkrantz was an operatic diva, with a powerful voice, beautiful presentation, and a way of manipulating people into seeing things her way. She had, to put it bluntly, been around a time or two. Mostly with older men, all of them powerful or rich or both. Now, however, she is dead. Found in her bedroom, meticulously laid out in the middle of a Persian rug in a way that suggests, contrary to any theories about the amount of laudanum in her system, that she probably did not take her own life.
The time: 1903. The place: Vienna. Franz Josef, the last of the Hapsburgs is hanging on to his empire by a thread. A revolutionary Mayor has control of Vienna, which is almost a state-within-a-state. Serbia is looking particularly restive. Mahler is Director of the Royal Opera and hell-bent on making enemies of his own. And one certain Herr Doktor Freud is pondering how to get both tenure as a professor and his ideas on sexuality into the public domain. He's shrewd enough to know that the latter is a threat to the former.
The story is padded out with an older mystery. A young composer, remembered now for only one (albeit brilliant) song, died tragically young in a mountain accident. Or was it an accident. There was gossip at the time, but you know how it is. Lieberman now thinks he has evidence.
Tallis has produced a meticulously researched novel. Unfortunately , it wears its learning heavily. The musical references are laboured. For one who has no interest in classical music , they were a pointless distraction and attempts at explaining them, rather than underlining my own ignorance simply served to rob them of the subtlety that might have rendered them teasingly enjoyable to those better educated than I.
Freud, likewise, had to be explained as if the average reader of modern fiction had never heard of him and did not understand the basics of his theories.
The architecture and interior design of the period are equally well painted – but in all detective fiction , such things are, as they are in life, mere window dressing. Of course the scene needs to be set, but we don't need the whole setting. Would a Detective Inspektor know a Louis XIV sofa if he was required to sit on one in ante roomanteroom? If he did, would he care? Of course , it is a mere token of opulence… but we are in the palace. The details have been earlier described, we know of its riches. This repetitive emphasis is unbalanced.
When it comes to characters, I would lament the insipid nature of every female in the book bar one, but for the fact that their male counterparts show no more verve. Let's simply say that the character that engaged me most was in the walk-on part that would probably show up in the dramatis personae as "the witch" (although in the text she is named).
All in all , I cannot recommend this. It warrants three stars because it isn't exactly badly written, but in a world with too many books and too little time, it is simply too slow but without subtlety, and the few red herrings are too fresh to raise the necessary stink.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. We also have a review of [[Deadly Communion by Frank Tallis]].
Further reading suggestion: Despite what the Daily Mail might think there are far better British thriller writers out there: [[:Category:Ian Rankin|Rankin]], the late [[:Category:Michael Dibdin|Dibdin]], and [[:Category:Grace Monroe|Grace Monroe]] would be reasonable places to start.