Concerts and Conflicts

Here are another two fine books composed by new and exciting writers, both of which are due out later this month.

Devil’s Trill, by Gerald Elias (Minotaur). Written by a concert violinist, this debut novel is set in the classical-music world and involves the theft of a priceless violin. Daniel Jacobus is a blind, reclusive, and crotchety violin teacher living in self-imposed exile in rural New England. He spends his time chain-smoking, listening to old LPs, and occasionally taking on new students, whom he berates in hopes that they will flee. But Jacobus is drawn back into the world he left behind when he decides to attend the Grimsley Competition at Carnegie Hall. The young winner of that competition is granted the honor of playing the Piccolino Stradivarius, a uniquely dazzling three-quarter-size violin that has brought misfortune to all who possessed it over the centuries. The instrument is stolen before the winner of the competition has a chance to lay a bow to its strings, however, and Jacobus is the primary suspect. He sets out to prove his innocence and find the stolen Piccolino Strad. The quest takes him through the halls of wealth and culture, across continents to Japan, and leads him to a murder. Devil’s Trill gives the reader a peek into the rarefied professional realm of classical music, with its backstabbing teachers and performers, venal patrons, and shady violin dealers. It is the remarkable beginning of a wonderful new series.

Homeland, by Barbara Hambly (Bantam). Readers who loved Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain or Geraldine Brooks’ March will certainly embrace and long remember Homeland. It’s the story of two remarkable women who are torn apart by conflict, sustained by literature and art, and united by hope. As brother turns against brother in the bloodbath of America’s Civil War, these young women sacrifice everything but their friendship. Susanna Ashford is the Southerner, living on a plantation surrounded by scarred and blood-soaked battlefields. Cora Poole is the Northerner, on an isolated Maine island, her beloved husband fighting for the Confederacy. Through the letters these two women exchange--about books and art, about loss and longing--they speak of the ordeal of watching their familiar world torn apart by tragedy.