Daniel Jacobus Mystery

Greed, lust, power, and murder are words not commonly associated with the world of classical music. Yet this is the setting into which blind Daniel Jacobus, a reclusive, cantankerous violin teacher living in self-imposed exile in rural New England, is inexorably drawn. For Jacobus, who spends his time chain smoking, listening to old LPs, and berating students in the hope they will flee, the evils of that world are epitomized by the "Piccolino" Stradivarius, a uniquely dazzling violin that has brought misfortune to all who possessed it over the centuries. After the Carnegie Hall debut of nine-year old Grimsley Competition winner Kamryn Vander, who is managed by the ruthless Musical Arts Project (MAP), the priceless "Piccolino" is stolen with Jacobus at the scene of the crime. But that's not the end of his problems. Haughty Victoria Jablonski, Vander's teacher and Jacobus's rival, is brutally murdered, and Jacobus becomes the primary suspect in both crimes. With the help of his musical partner Nathaniel Williams and his intriguing new student Yumi Shinagawa, Jacobus sets out to rid the world of MAP and prove his innocence against all odds.

Just after his Carnegie Hall swansong beloved violinist and humanitarian Rene Allard is brutally murdered with a mysterious weapon. His young African American rival, BTower, is spotted at the scene of the crime hovering over the body of Allard with blood on his hands. In short order the aloof and arrogant BTower is convicted and sentenced to death, in part the result of the testimony of blind and curmudgeonly violin pedagogue Daniel Jacobus. Justice has been served...or has it? Jacobus is dragged back into the case kicking and screaming, and reluctantly follows a trail of broken violins and broken lives as it leads inexorably to the truth, and to his own mortal peril.

Dogged by internal dissension and by a potentially devastating lawsuit from its fired second violinist, the famed New Magini String Quartet is on the brink of professional and personal collapse. The quartet pins its hopes on a multi-media Carnegie Hall performance of Franz Schubert's masterpiece, "Death and the Maiden," to resurrect its faltering fortunes. But as the fateful downbeat approaches, a la Agatha Christie, one by one the quartet's musicians mysteriously vanish, including second violinist, Yumi Shinagawa, former student of renowned blind pedagogue and amateur sleuth, Daniel Jacobus. It is left up to the begrudging Jacobus, with his old friend, Nathaniel Williams, and a new member of the detective team, Trotsky the bulldog, to unravel the deadly puzzle. As usual, it ends up more than Jacobus bargained for.

Vaclav Herza, the last of a dying breed of great but tyrannical conductors, has been the long-time music director of the world-famous orchestra, Harmonium, since fleeing political turmoil in Eastern Europe for America in the mid-twentieth century. When Herza summarily dismisses the acting concertmaster, Scheherazade O'Brien, from an audition she was poised to win and awards the position to Yumi Shinagawa, a former student of blind, cantankerous violin teacher Daniel Jacobus, the results are lethal, convulsing the entire orchestra. Jacobus, who had earlier shunned O'Brien's plea for support against Herza's relentless harassment, investigates Herza's closely held secrets. With the help of his old friends Nathaniel Williams, Max Furukawa, and Martin Lilburn, Jacobus seeks not only revenge but redemption from the guilt of his own troubled past.

The latest Daniel Jacobus mystery holds a mirror to the glittery façade of the concert world, delving into the multimillion-dollar sleight-of-hand of violin dealing . . . When an anxious phone call from obscure violinmaker Amadeo Borlotti disturbs Daniel Jacobus's Christmas Eve festivities, he and his dear friends Nathaniel and Yumi make light of it. A seemingly humble practitioner of his craft, Borlotti preferred the quiet life in the country away from the limelight. He even found love at an advanced age. But his larceny, which began as a typographical error in a bill for a violin repair, grew incessantly. In the end he became a helpless captive of his past indiscretions and was consumed by it, and it is up to Jacobus and his team to find out how, and why.

When reclusive, blind violin pedagogue Daniel Jacobus is invited to speak at a seemingly innocuous symposium on Baroque music at a prestigious music conservatory, he has no idea he is about to become enmeshed in an entrenched culture of sexual harassment and its cover-up at the highest levels. And when a renowned faculty member dies of apparent natural causes, only the curious behaviour of a violin student at Jacobus's master class is an indication to him that something may be terribly amiss.

A freak summer storm severs an island music festival in the middle of Utah's Great Salt Lake from the mainland. When one festival administrator, and then a second, is found dead, can curmudgeonly Daniel Jacobus solve the murders before his protégée, violinist Yumi Shinagawa, becomes the third victim?

A packed house at London's famed Royal Albert Hall. Gustav Mahler's monumental 6th Symphony, with its three massive hammer strokes of Fate. The first and the second go by uneventfully. But then, the third! Will Mahler's third hammer stroke of Fate claim another victim? Gerald Elias's riveting eighth installment of the critically acclaimed Daniel Jacobus mystery series will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Blind, curmudgeonly violinist Jacobus and his devoted companions, Yumi Shinagawa and Nathaniel Williams, join forces with Branwell Small, a questionably trustworthy partner in crime solving, and officious DCI Christopher Mattheson as they follow every baffling twist and turn in a truly classical whodunnit.