A review by acogna
Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

funny mysterious medium-paced

4.25

This book made me assume a number of things about Sir Terry Pratchett. Like, for instance, I would assume post-1986, someone he knew made him travel to West End to watch a funny little musical about a sad masked man called The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the concept of it consumed his mind; not in the rabid fandom sense in which it overtook me (and was the reason I picked this up, even), but in the fascinating curiosity that Phantom naturally stokes in people. He then went on a series of deep research dives about this musical, learned it was based on a novel written by Gaston Leroux, which in turn had a history of basically a million adaptations, and then he passively learned about them. And then he wrote this book, which contains almost every little minutia of Phantom detail, to the point I feel I missed some on my initial pass. I would also assume Sir Terry Pratchett had a cat while all that was going on.

Both what I expected going in, and was pleasantly unexpected in parts too. This is not really Phantom adaptation, not in the true sense. It is, however, a fun whodunnit with a masked culprit at the centre, but not really too. Yeah, it's got murders, but they aren't the focus, it's got a murderer, but they aren't really much of a point when it comes around to it. No, this is about opera, and identity, and being true to yourself.

It's also about cats.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia