A black student is shot dead during a demonstration claiming “Beethoven Was Black” in Bonn’s historic Münsterplatz with its majestic monument to the Bonn-born composer. Attending a Beethoven jubilee conference in the city is retired professor turned art crimes detective Megan Crespi with her American colleague and Beethoven expert, Will Meridian. During their symposium on the composer one of the participants is also killed. Who is the assassin or assassins and why do the murders continue? The cast of characters and suspects Megan is confronted with include Bettina Brentano, ambitious conductor of the Bonn Classical Philharmonic, Oskar van der Fresser, founder of the Beethoven und Du Museum in Vienna, Dr. Seide Sammlerin, over-protective director of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Tobias Neidisch, Beethovenhalle night guard with a chip on his shoulder, Dr. Li Shutong, with a singular background relating to Beethoven in China, Leopold Weissknab, white supremacist student studying at Bonn University, Louis van Hoven, a self-declared direct descendant of Ludwig van Beethoven, Clemens Karl von Masuren, beloved conductor of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, and Takuto Nisemono, conductor and composer once considered “the Beethoven of Japan, ” now disgraced but defiant and scheming a come-back. Megan’s pursuit of Beethoven-related criminal activity extends to a cruise ship bound for China and additional deaths. Can justice prevail?
Про автора
Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica to China and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, The Kandinsky Conundrum, and The Mahler Mayhem. All Comini’s scholarly books are available in new editions from Sunstone Press as is the entire Megan Crespi Mystery Series.