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Murder And Mendelssohn (2013)

by Kerry Greenwood(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Allen and Unwin

series

Phryne Fisher

review 1: Phryne can turn a gay man straight. She has done everything else why not this. She investigates when a conductor is murdered after rehearsing Mendelssohn's Elijah with the local chorus. She runs into an old friend from her wartime experience and their reunion leads to the usual conclusion for Phryne. Then two more conductors are murdered and Phryne has to try and solve the mystery before the new expert on investigative deduction, Rupert Sheffield. Guess who wins?
review 2: A choral conductor is killed in a very personal way and it looks like more conductors may follow. Meanwhile, Phryne meets a former lover from her war days. Their reconnection is shadowed by the fact that somebody seems to be making attempts on the life of the man he loves. I love this seri... morees, but found this one disappointing. Way too much space is spent quoting and repeating music lyrics from Mendelssohn to folk songs. Way too much space! There are two mysteries to be solved and one Phryne handles with her usual skill and in the other she just seems to bumble about in an uncharacteristic way. I thought the identity of the murderer was pretty obvious so why it evaded Phryne's notice when she's so clever is unclear. Really it seems like she just doesn't care very much about it, and that may be because the other mystery was more personal to her. There was also way more sex in this book; there's always a lot of sex because Phryne is a very sensual and sexual woman and that's fine, but in Murder and Mendelssohn it felt like it was being used as filler to take up more pages. Her daughter, Jane, also seemed out of character; bright as always but completely without emotion or empathy. I think Greenwood was trying to show similarities between Jane and and another character who is genius who is, at first, totally lacking in emotion or empathy. It just felt overboard when in other books Jane is shown as a genius, but a genius who is human and not a machine. Maybe Jane is just entering a teenage phase.... Altogether this book just felt not as good as the others. Normally, I'm sad when the book ends; this time it was a relief. I felt like it could have been completed in a hundred fewer pages....perhaps by taking out the repetitive music lyrics.The one bright point was that we did learn a bit more about Phryne's war service. That was interesting. The parts relating to military intelligence were interesting. less

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