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A review by thunguyen
The Devil in Music by Kate Ross
5.0
I picked up this book right after reading Whom the gods love and dived into the first part which brought us back in time, starting with the background story of the murder. New set of characters, new location not in England but all the way in Italy (Milan and Lake Como), and a good 4 years before the "present" Julian Kestrel. To be honest, I was bored because there was no mention of Julian himself, so the reading became quite sluggish. Then one night, I decided to find out what kind of music Julian could have played on his piano in 1820s, as we all know he's a music lover and a decent pianist, which was a rare thing for gentlemen of that time. So it happened that I got sucked into watching YouTube videos about classical music and abandoned the book for a whole month.
The results of this sojourn were:
1. I found out that the Julian Kestrel that was frozen in time would never know and play my most favourite piece Liebestraum No. 3 by Franz Liszt as it was 25 years too early for that. But I can always imagine him a gentleman in his 50s, survived a whole lot more investigations, and still found the time to check out new music sent over to England from friends in the Continent. Readers can always dream.
2. I now understand that "The Devil in music" is the tritone in music theory, which generally stands for dissonance. I like the idea of "tritone" here and throughout the whole book, I can see the theme of 3 different Julians struggling to make peace within himself, Julian the investigator who thinks like a German, Julian the lover who flirts like a Frenchman, and Julian the music lover who understands music like an Italian. These are all dissonance to Julian the English dandy. But beautiful music is beautiful no matter what the composition is, and beautiful soul is beautiful because of the struggles within. I am so glad that we've got to know so much more about Julian's history before the series came to an abrupt end.
3. I bought a piano and started learning to play. One day if anyone happens to ask me why I started learning a musical instrument rather late in life, I will have the pleasure to answer "Because I read a murder book".
Music aside, back to reading. Murder committed, forward flashed to present day Julian Kestrel, entered new set of characters, traveled to the original crime scene, now we have an Italian country house murder setting. Half of the book gone, not much really happened except flirting, feels like the investigation hadn't pick up a single thread and there was no solid suspects list. How would this murder ever be solved? And who the hell was the freaking mysterious Orfeo? To be honest, all of this dragged on for a bit too long for me, so when we came to learn the criminal's identity it feels a bit "out of nowhere". Of course, a major part of "what Julian knew" was naturally hidden from readers as the plot demands for, which makes it a massive change from previous books where readers can move along solving the puzzles.
Personally, I only started to be drawn emotionally into the story at the point where Lucia had her drama about courage, and Francesca and Valeriano had their drama about love. I know that in each one of the Julian Kestrel book, there is the theme of abusive masculinity and abused victims. It was glad to see in this book the abused not only didn't end up dead but more than that they even had their happy endings.
With a diet of strictly red herrings served through out the book, I've only figured out the twists right before their revelations. And what twists they are! Just simply an amazing plot! I'm so glad we had a chance to learn so much more about Julian before it all ended.
This is the song that Orfeo sang when his identity was revealed:
Dalla Sua Pace
Last night, I wept for the loss of an amazing series.
Rest in peace, Kate. Thank you so much for the books.
The results of this sojourn were:
1. I found out that the Julian Kestrel that was frozen in time would never know and play my most favourite piece Liebestraum No. 3 by Franz Liszt as it was 25 years too early for that. But I can always imagine him a gentleman in his 50s, survived a whole lot more investigations, and still found the time to check out new music sent over to England from friends in the Continent. Readers can always dream.
2. I now understand that "The Devil in music" is the tritone in music theory, which generally stands for dissonance. I like the idea of "tritone" here and throughout the whole book, I can see the theme of 3 different Julians struggling to make peace within himself, Julian the investigator who thinks like a German, Julian the lover who flirts like a Frenchman, and Julian the music lover who understands music like an Italian. These are all dissonance to Julian the English dandy. But beautiful music is beautiful no matter what the composition is, and beautiful soul is beautiful because of the struggles within. I am so glad that we've got to know so much more about Julian's history before the series came to an abrupt end.
3. I bought a piano and started learning to play. One day if anyone happens to ask me why I started learning a musical instrument rather late in life, I will have the pleasure to answer "Because I read a murder book".
Music aside, back to reading. Murder committed, forward flashed to present day Julian Kestrel, entered new set of characters, traveled to the original crime scene, now we have an Italian country house murder setting. Half of the book gone, not much really happened except flirting, feels like the investigation hadn't pick up a single thread and there was no solid suspects list. How would this murder ever be solved? And who the hell was the freaking mysterious Orfeo? To be honest, all of this dragged on for a bit too long for me, so when we came to learn the criminal's identity it feels a bit "out of nowhere". Of course, a major part of "what Julian knew" was naturally hidden from readers as the plot demands for, which makes it a massive change from previous books where readers can move along solving the puzzles.
Personally, I only started to be drawn emotionally into the story at the point where Lucia had her drama about courage, and Francesca and Valeriano had their drama about love. I know that in each one of the Julian Kestrel book, there is the theme of abusive masculinity and abused victims. It was glad to see in this book the abused not only didn't end up dead but more than that they even had their happy endings.
With a diet of strictly red herrings served through out the book, I've only figured out the twists right before their revelations. And what twists they are! Just simply an amazing plot! I'm so glad we had a chance to learn so much more about Julian before it all ended.
This is the song that Orfeo sang when his identity was revealed:
Dalla Sua Pace
Last night, I wept for the loss of an amazing series.
Rest in peace, Kate. Thank you so much for the books.