Death and the Maiden

This latest mystery from Elias (Danse Macabre), featuring almost-too-irascible-to-be-lovable Daniel Jacobus, a brilliant violinist whose career was ended by blindness, has a headline-based premise. In 2005, a violinist fired by the Audubon Quartet sued his former colleagues, causing some to lose their homes and even their instruments. Here, Jacobus's former pupil Yumi now plays with the New Magini String Quartet, replacing an impossible colleague who had been forced out. The quartet is set to rehearse Schubert's sublime "Death and the Maiden" for a multimedia event at Carnegie Hall, but first violinist Aaron Kortovsky is missing in action. Jacobus is drafted to find him, though he's stymied by the musicians' business-only attitude; even violist Annika hasn't kept track of Kortovsky, and she's married to him. Soon, Jacobus is on the phone with a chamber music-loving policeman in Peru, Kortovsky's last known whereabouts, while worrying about that scorned colleague and the temporary replacement for Kortovsky, a wild Russian who happens to be the cellist's son.