Chords and Discords
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Music may be the food of love… it doesn’t fill an empty belly. Winter is not a good time for jobbing musicians in early 18th century Newcastle. The town has emptied for the season, and Charles Patterson, harpsichordist, concert arranger and tutor to the gentry, is down to his last few shillings. But Patterson has another talent: solving mysteries. When an unpopular organ builder thinks his life is in danger and a shop-boy dies in dubious circumstances, the offer of a substantial fee persuades him to seek answers to some difficult questions. Like, who stole the dancing-master’s clothes? Why is a valuable organ up for raffle? And will Patterson escape whoever is trying to kill him?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of British author Southey's excellent second mystery set in 18th-century Newcastle (after 2007's Broken Harmony), harpsichordist Charles Patterson, newly dumped as city musical director, is teetering on the verge of starvation when cantankerous organ builder William Bairstowe makes him an offer he can't refuse to discover the source of threats against Bairstowe's life. The plot, as intricate as a fugue, intriguingly counterpoints Patterson's detection of mayhem and murder with his unresolvable attraction to his wealthy and flagrantly breeches-wearing music student, Esther Jerdoun, aged 38 to his 26. The book's major appeal, like Hogarth's, lies in realistic but wickedly pointed characterizations and the convincing evocation of the sounds and stink of a preindustrial city. Southey deserves an encore for this ingenious satire of a society as full as ours of nefarious predators and for her bittersweet sympathy for the underdog.
