Beethoven's Assassins

Beethoven’s Assassins is impeccably ambitious, reliably 'Entertaining and a little over the top. It’s what happens when everything is allowed.'

John Self in The Financial Times

'Crumey gives each of his chapters its own period and central character, and flips from one to another with the dexterity and humour of a champion juggler. Matters of art, science and philosophy are deftly discussed and sometimes linked to each other within the narrative. 'Seeing connections everywhere is a hallmark of madness as well as German Romanticism' is just one of Crumey’s witty remarks, with a hint of self-mockery to it. But Crumey is not mad or a German Romantic; he is just full of pizzazz and fun.'

Paul Griffith in The Literary Review

'It’s great cerebral fun, with its quantum physics, telepathy, time travel and fraying of fact and fiction. But all this is its own misdirection. Coyle’s mother has died suddenly, and his father has dementia. The writing here about the soul-grinding nature of the bureaucracy surrounding illness and death is chillingly good. The questions the novel poses about science and aesthetics (is Einstein as good as Beethoven?) pale in comparison to the rawness of the loss it depicts with the same scrutiny as an equation or a late quartet.'

Stuart Kelly in The Spectator

' The intensity with which the story questions the very nature of time, though – and follows its central voice, Robert Coyle, through the strange reality-shifting nightmare of the pandemic – seems entirely of this moment; as if Crumey were leading us into a terminal vortex of history and thought, music and culture, parallel universes and competing realities, where all things sparkle and implode with extraordinary vividness, on the edge of oblivion.'

Joyce McMillan in The Scotsman

'Beethoven’s Assassins is that refreshing thing, a novel of ideas with all the intrigue and momentum (and occasional red herring) of an absorbing mystery, underscored by a dark, ironic sense of humour. Coyle’s shifting relationship with his dementia-afflicted father, Crouch’s feelings of inadequacy, Marion’s compassion for the boy in her care and Therese’s willingness to forgive her brother-in-law Beethoven on his deathbed all anchor the story in a relatable humanity, even as the characters are drawn inexorably into a weird hinterland of esoteric lore, paranormal phenomena and ancient conspiracies.'

Alastair Mabbott in The Herald