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Death and Transfiguration (Daniel Jacobus Series #4)

Name: Death and Transfiguration (Daniel Jacobus Series #4)
Author: Gerald Elias
ISBN: 9780312678357

by Gerald Elias

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Overview

The fourth book in the series featuring the irascible but loveable amateur sleuth Daniel Jacobus Vaclav Herza, the last of a dying breed of great but tyrannical conductors, has been music director of Harmonium for forty years. The world famous touring orchestra was created for him when he fled Czechoslovakia for America during the political turmoil in Eastern Europe in 1956. It is the eve of the opening of a dramatic new concert hall designed by Herza himself. It is also the eleventh hour of intense contract negotiations with the musicians that have strained relations within the organization. When the acting concertmaster, Scheherazade O’Brien, is summarily dismissed by the despotic Herza for the permanent concertmaster position, an audition she was poised to win, O’Brien slits her wrists and the orchestra becomes convulsed. Now, blind, cantankerous violin teacher Daniel Jacobus, who had shunned O’Brien’s earlier plea for help against Herza’s relentless harassment, investigates Herza’s dark past not only in Prague, but in Tokyo and New York. With the help of his old friends Nathaniel Williams, Max Furukawa, and Martin Lilburn, he seeks not only revenge but redemption from the guilt of his own past.

Synopsis

The fourth book in the series featuring the irascible but loveable amateur sleuth Daniel Jacobus

Vaclav Herza, the last of a dying breed of great but tyrannical conductors, has been music director of Harmonium for forty years. The world famous touring orchestra was created for him when he fled Czechoslovakia for America during the political turmoil in Eastern Europe in 1956. It is the eve of the opening of a dramatic new concert hall designed by Herza himself. It is also the eleventh hour of intense contract negotiations with the musicians that have strained relations within the organization. When the acting concertmaster, Scheherazade O'Brien, is summarily dismissed by the despotic Herza for the permanent concertmaster position, an audition she was poised to win, O'Brien slits her wrists and the orchestra becomes convulsed. Now, blind, cantankerous violin teacher Daniel Jacobus, who had shunned O'Brien's earlier plea for help against Herza's relentless harassment, investigates Herza's dark past not only in Prague, but in Tokyo and New York. With the help of his old friends Nathaniel Williams, Max Furukawa, and Martin Lilburn, he seeks not only revenge but redemption from the guilt of his own past.

About the Author, Gerald Elias

A graduate of Yale, GERALD ELIAS has been a Boston Symphony violinist, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony, adjunct professor of music at the University of Utah, first violinist of the Abramyan String Quartet, and Music Director of the Vivaldi Candlelight concert series. He is also the author of Devil’s Trill, selected by Barnes and Noble for their 2009 Discover Great New Writers catalog, and Danse Macabre, hailed as one of the top five mysteries in 2010 by Library Journal.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Near the start of Elias’s finely tuned, wickedly funny fourth mystery featuring crotchety blind violinist Daniel Jacobus (after 2011’s Death and the Maiden), 41-year-old violinist Sherry O’Brien asks for his help with her audition for concertmaster of the prestigious Harmonium Orchestra. Jacobus, cantankerous as usual, brushes her off. When Sherry kills herself after confronting the orchestra’s notoriously egotistical and caustic director, Vaclac Herza, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia 40 years earlier, Jacobus enlists the aid of his sighted friends to probe into Herza’s past, long rumored to be unsavory. Memorable and shocking encounters in Prague and Tokyo alternate with pungent scenes of rancorous contract negotiations, nail-biting auditions, and the clash of wills between conductor and players, all on the eve of the orchestra’s inauguration of their new concert hall built on landfill off the southern tip of Manhattan. There’s just one word for this book: bravo! Agent: Josh Getzler, Hannigan Salky Getzler Agency. (June)

Library Journal

Reclusive, blind violin instructor Daniel Jacobus becomes curious about a prestigious symphony's internal strife when comments against the talented but maniacal conductor, Vaclav Herza, reach a divisive level. Sherry O'Brien, the acting concertmaster, has come to Daniel for advice because she fears that Herza's harassment of her means he won't appoint her to a deserved permanent position. But Daniel basically blows her off. A few days later, Sherry is in the hospital with slashed wrists, close to death. Daniel comes to his senses and mobilizes his team of friends—Nathaniel, Max, and Martin—to dig into Herza's past. Working round the clock in Prague, Tokyo, and New York, each man unearths dark secrets that clearly demonstrate Herza has killed before. Daniel knows this conductor must be brought to justice. VERDICT Elegantly structured to match the Richard Strauss piece from which the title comes, Elias's fourth title (after Death and the Maiden) in his highly regarded series deserves a standing ovation. Think Donna Leon for pacing and thoughtfulness and Deborah Grabien for music's integral role in the plot.

Kirkus Reviews

Is artistic temperament a justification for murder? The Maestro has been terrorizing musicians for over 40 years. He's verbally humiliated them, sexually compromised them and summarily fired them. Vaclav Herza's most recent target is Scheherazade O'Brien, acting concertmaster of the world-renowned symphony orchestra Harmonium. When Sherry asks crotchety, blind old violinists' mentor Daniel Jacobus for help in dealing with Herza and preparing for her audition as Harmonium's permanent concertmaster, he declines because his favorite former pupil, Yumi Shinagawa, is also vying for the position. When Herza ousts Sherry from the competition and her job, she's distraught. Discovered with her wrists slit, she's rushed to the hospital. Will she ever play again? Will she even survive? Thinking to avenge her, Jacobus has his pal Nathaniel scrutinize Herza's early life in Prague. Nathaniel uncovers information about a musician Herza may have driven to suicide there as well as rumors that he was a Soviet informer during the 1956 Communist crackdown. Another contact digs up scandals involving Herza's concerts in Japan, which included an obsession with sumo wrestling and a penchant for cuddling male geishas. Meanwhile, back in the States, Herza is dismissing Harmonium's board members, support staff and musicians, who are threatening to strike on the evening the orchestra's new symphony hall is to open, when Jacobus finally confronts Herza, bringing the Maestro's reign of terror to an end. Who could resist an insider's view of Tanglewood, an analysis of Turner's art and a dog who knows when his slobber is not appreciated? Elias (Death and the Maiden, 2011, etc.) has a nose for creative detail and a refreshing impatience with pomposity. Indulge yourself in his artfulness.