NightMusic

Rating:
Summary: culture, erudtion and grisly suspense
Review: I don't usually read murder mysteries, but I just finished "NightMusic" which is a real page turner as it kept me awake reading deep into the night. While, on the one hand, you can take your time with this book, savoring its style, it also speeds you along with the smooth writing and compelling storyline. Connoisseurs of European culture and history will be delighted, as they were with "The Name of the Rose", though for different reasons. It also reminded me a bit of Iris Murdoch, another very learned novelist with a flair for suspense and things Gothic.
The musicologist Matthew Pierce, as the lead character, is similar in a way to Harry Potter in the sense that he's neglected by his peers and academic colleagues (as Harry Potter is mistreated by the Dursleys) but then enters a world in which his talents are appreciated. There's even a nod at the end to Agatha Christie, in the drawing room scene in which the characters convene to reveal the truth of what's been going on.
While "The Name of the Rose" is primarily a novel of ideas cast in the form of a murder mystery, "NightMusic" is first and foremost a murder mystery, but one that's full to overflowing with vivid and glittering culture, ideas, music and history as well as sex, skulduggery and dastardliness.

Rating:
Summary: Totally Absorbing
Review: "Night Music," Harrison Slater's artfully woven mystery, totally absorbed me into its world. A world so fascinating, so evil, and yet so beautiful that after reading it, my intellect, love of music, and senses had all been satisfied. Mr. Slater's prose moves like a musical score with all the qualities of a great symphony. "Night Music" has been an unforgettable reading experience.

Rating:
Summary: A good attempt
Review: A nice try, but this author needs a better editor. Many characters could have been cut, the main character Matthew Pierce's POV from time to time just screams "porn star". Maybe if Matthew paid less attention oogling ladies he would have been more astute to the mystery unfolding around him.

Just watch out for gratuitous scenes. Roll your eyes and say "oh, please". I think the author wrote some of it to amuse himself, which is fine, but it should have been cut in the end.

This book has it all, action, adventure, smut, mystery, research intrigue, but from time to time these elements crash into each other. I was sucked into the the mystery, and was captivated by the Mozart diaries, the rest of the material seemed like extra needless backstory. I will watch this author, and would be pleased to see what he offers next.

Rating:
Summary: A good attempt
Review: A nice try, but this author needs a better editor. Many characters could have been cut, the main character Matthew Pierce's POV from time to time just screams "porn star". Maybe if Matthew paid less attention oogling ladies he would have been more astute to the mystery unfolding around him.

Just watch out for gratuitous scenes. Roll your eyes and say "oh, please". I think the author wrote some of it to amuse himself, which is fine, but it should have been cut in the end.

This book has it all, action, adventure, smut, mystery, research intrigue, but from time to time these elements crash into each other. I was sucked into the the mystery, and was captivated by the Mozart diaries, the rest of the material seemed like extra needless backstory. I will watch this author, and would be pleased to see what he offers next.

Rating:
Summary: unremittingly dull
Review: As a doctor of music, I was intrigued by the idea of a musicologist as the protagonist in a mystery novel. I like mysteries, and I like musicology, so I was sure I would be this book's ideal reader. Its central plot device is the discovery of what might be a lost diary of Mozart. I was encouraged to read that the author is himself a pianist and musicologist, since this would surely enliven the world of the book. Perhaps some interesting insights into Mozart's early life would be found in the imagined diary. And perhaps - best case scenario - the author would help me to hear Mozart's music with fresh ears.

Unfortunately, the book fails in every respect to live up to its promise. The author's style is unremittingly dull, and incapable of inspiring in the reader any emotion for his characters. Much of the book is set in Europe, but it might as well be Brooklyn. We get no sense of the locale, even though the author apparently spends much time abroad.

I found the main character impossible to like even a little. One reviewer here referred to his angst, but I don't think that adequately expresses the relentless self-involvement we are invited to become accomplice to. If we were to witness even the smallest portion of genuine ill fortune this man imagines himself to be the victim of, the book would be lively indeed. Instead, we are treated to a litany of trivial complaints that read like petulant letters home from a vacationing Evelyn Waugh hero. Perhaps we are not meant particularly to like him, but if this is the case, we ought at least to enjoy not liking him, as in Patricia Highsmith's books.

The book's supporting cast of bitchy music queens, enigmatic aristocrats and taciturn acedemes fail to convince as well, though any of them would make a better traveling companion than our hero. Sadly, the Mozart revealed to us through his diary entries is, predictably, as much a cipher as the man reading them. Perhaps most disappointing of all, and most perplexing, is the complete lack of engagement with Mozart's music - the reason we are interested in his life at all.

I can't remember when I approached a book with such high expectations and left it so abjectly disinterested.

Rating:
Summary: Unredeeming
Review: As a musician and mystery-lover, I expected to thoroughly enjoy this book. I pitched it less than a third of the way through. The protagonist is one of the most obnoxious narrators I've ever encountered - every woman's nightmare date, self-aggrandizing, self-pitying and self-absorbed. The plot seems to be a take-off on the DaVinci Code (another terrible book). There are too many good books to waste time reading bad books.

Rating:
Summary: Unredeeming
Review: As a musician and mystery-lover, I expected to thoroughly enjoy this book. I pitched it less than a third of the way through. The protagonist is one of the most obnoxious narrators I've ever encountered - every woman's nightmare date, self-aggrandizing, self-pitying and self-absorbed. The plot seems to be a take-off on the DaVinci Code (another terrible book). There are too many good books to waste time reading bad books.

Rating:
Summary: Not a note of joy in the book
Review: Mystery, intrigue, passion - we are drawn into a world of great wealth and made to experience the sights, sounds, aromas, & tastes as we perceive the lives of aristocrats, artists, musicians, tycoons and all those illustrious characters who inhabit this world. My thanks to Harrison Slater for a fascinating read.

Rating:
Summary: Slater's moving Mozart mystery moves
Review: NightMusic is a novel/mystery for everyone. It's Mathew's story about Mozart, Milan and so much more. The protagonist, Mathew Pierce, after finding what appears to be Mozart's diaries, travels in Europe, a guest of his mentor, Vicomte Rene de Laguerelle. In the process Pierce finds out much about the diary and more about Mozart's world. The plot moves quickly thanks to the authors writing style. Along the way you meet some interesting, sometimes wealthy, sometimes talented, and often complicated people some of whom know each other too well. Mathew doesn't know some of them well enough, and doesn't know others soon enough.

The novel clips right along. It felt like I was watching a movie. The chapter in the monastery in Prague moves like "Indiana Jones" in a "Name of the Rose" setting. The descriptions of LaFavorite, de Laguerelle's estate, reminds me of "Restoration". Although, Laguerelle's estate also brings to mind so much of what I love about Versailles. AND, speaking of movies, Slater ought to consider writing screenplays.

The descriptions of the people and places are accurate, detailed, involved, and surprising. Slater knows people well, and of course he visited all these places, and he shares his best research with his reader. When he talks of Nancy, for example, he has one of his characters mention "Nancy is beautiful, it was designed by a polish king (living in Nancy after loosing his throne). He uses & translates the Italian and French (and this novel is Italian and French) so subtly, so skillfully; you felt that you've always read French/Italian - even if you never have.

Slater creates many parallels between Mozart and Matthew Pierce, and often the juxtaposition of other places, people, writings and cities is astonishing. The creator of the book jacket must have recognized these parallels and juxtapositions. Sometimes Slater weaves two people and two epochs into four or five paragraphs, sentence by sentence. Not only is this mystery a thrill, full of facts, and well written; this mystery moves, and it's moving!

Rating:
Summary: less is more
Review: The idea is intriguing (a discovery of 14-year-old Mozart's diary), and the combination of art and mystery adds to the enjoyment. But - as Mozart knew better than any other - less REALLY is more. The cast of characters rivals those in "War and Peace" (without the memorability factor). The thumbnail characterizations are formulaic to an annoying degree. The laundry list of furnishings, napery, crystal, silver, food, drink, locations, directions, cars and other modes of transportation, et cetera is staggering. Somewhere in all this verbiage lurks a tiny plot. Dr. Slater does a VERY good job at debunking Peter Shaffer and all that Salieri nonsense, and his writing about the composing of the Requiem is spot on. But the over-flowered prose (Dr. Slater ought to look up "whence": it means "from where", so "from whence" is tautological), the endless adjectives, phrases, modifiers, the information-I-never-needed-to-have - all that is stuffing that is stultifying. I found myself counting off percentages of pages (10%=56 pages) as I read, and used the book as a nighttime soporific. My advice: skip the book and listen to any of the 626 koechel-listed works of Mozart. Any one of these "less" is definitely: MORE.