Kate Ross (1) (1956–1998)

In the 1820s in northern Italy, the Marchese Lodovico Malvezzi—powerful, arrogant, music-obsessed—is found dead. That the Marchese was murdered is hushed up for some years, allowing the main suspect, a young singer known only as Orfeo, to disappear. When the authorities realise that a crime was committed, the famous English dandy and sleuth Julian Kestrel learns of it and travels to Italy to unravel the truth behind what happened, while also finding himself entranced by Lodovico's beautiful young widow, Beatrice.

The Devil in Music is stronger than the previous work of Kate Ross' that I've read, [book: Whom the Gods Love], and she was clearly improving as a writer before her untimely death not long after this final book of hers was published. Having a Regency-era country house murder mystery take place in Italy is a nice shake-up of the usual formula, since it lets Ross bring in elements of contemporary Austrian/Italian politics to add complicating factors. This wasn't a bad wintry holiday read. That said, parts of the plot/exposition/reveal are lumpier than needs be, and the core romantic relationships both fail to convince and feel like they belong to a book written much earlier than the '90s.… (més)

This gallops along at a very enjoyable clip for the first two-thirds or three-quarters, with the dandy and amateur sleuth Julian Kestrel roaming around 1820s London trying to solve the murder of another member of the Ton, the (perhaps too-charming) Alexander Falkland. Kate Ross writes a serviceable Regency-ish pastiche for the most part, although the servility of the working-class characters and their cod Cockney dialogue grated a bit.

And then it all sort of falls asunder a bit.

The unfolding of the whodunnit in the last part required suspension of disbelief about some very stagey, melodramatic elements and moustache-twirling villainy, all of which sat uncomfortably alongside some revelations that were far darker than you might expect to encounter in this particular genre of novel—in fact, darker than Ross seemed to have fully grasped. That Whom the Gods Love was written in the mid-90s is also pretty apparent in some of the dated ways it frames gender, sex, relationships, and ethnicity.

(This isn’t a straight-up reworking of The Merchant of Venice, but there are some nods to it. And that particular Shakespeare play has some beautiful language, but it’s also deeply messed up. Ross creates here a character who is the archetype of the Self-Loathing Rich Jew, one who nurtures a passion for a beautiful, blonde Christian woman whom he barely knows desperate enough that he’ll forgive her husband tens of thousands of pounds worth of debts for the chance to have sex with her—in other words, since she neither knows about this in advance nor is willing to do so, for the chance to rape her. Near the end of the book, we’re told that the woman in question “understands” why the man did it and that “she forgives [him]”, that they’re “two of a kind” and that this “was a great love squandered.” If you’re not wrinkling your nose after reading all of that, I don’t know what to tell you. Add to that a Portia-esque character who’s written in a way that today would probably be interpreted as non-binary/genderqueer but who ends the novel having reverted to heteronormative modes of dress and behaviour and seems happy to be married off to a man twice her age, and you get a book that really, truly lost me in the last few chapters.)… (més)

Good mystery. Generic English historical-fiction setting that made me think about how Georgette Heyer establishes a sense of time, whether 18th or early 19th century. Much of her genius is in the details of clothing, which reflect extensive research and comprehensive notebooks; there is also a great deal of mention of current events, whether balloon ascensions or the Napoleonic Wars. This book lacks those (we are told but not shown that J. is a leader of fashion!), and could have been set in the time of Dickens, or Jack the Ripper, just as easily. I was quite a ways into the book before it was entirely clear when it was supposed to be happening. There is also a romantic interlude with perhaps the least compatible couple I have ever met in literature, and I have read the epilogue to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so that is saying quite a lot.

But it was a good mystery, well constructed, and fun to read. Definitely earned at least three-and-a-half stars.… (més)