The Printed Page

Title: Requiem in Vienna (Viennese Mystery, book#2)
Author/website(s): J. Sydney Jones
293 pages
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication date: March ’10
Genre: Historical mystery
Review book or pleasure reading: Review book
New-to-me author: No
Would I recommend this book: DNF’d @ pg. 182
Would I read more from this author: Probably not
Journal notes: After reading The Empty Mirror, which I very much enjoyed, I had high hopes for this second book in the Viennese mystery series. But alas it didn’t continue with Requiem in Vienna. I actually gave up about a hundred pages from the end. My interest dwindled down to nothing. I no longer cared who might be out to harm, or even murder, Gustav Mahler. Requiem in Vienna seemed more like a lesson of the Vienna music scene in the late 1800s than a murder mystery. The author spends plenty of time exploring the background and relationships of various composers and conductors. I felt like the story was going nowhere fast.

Whereas The Empty Mirror was all about solving murder using criminology in its early days before all the high tech equipment and methods of today Requiem in Vienna is more about indulging the author’s passion for Vienna and all things Viennese. Mr. Jones is so knowledgeable about Viennese culture and history at times I feel I’m over-immersed in time and place (what they had for each meal, where they ate those meals or drank their coffee). For me Requiem in Vienna was a lot of detail and little substance. ** If you do read the series I recommend reading them in order as it will give you the background and relationships for the main characters.

At first it seemed like a series of accidents plagued Vienna’s Court Opera. But after a singer is killed during rehearsals of a new production, the evidence suggests something much more dangerous. Someone is trying to murder the famed conductor and composer Gustav Mahler. Worse, Mahler might not be the first musical genius to be dispatched by this unknown killer.

Alma Schindler, one of Mahler’s many would-be mistresses, asks the lawyer and aspiring private investigator Karl Werthen to stop the attacks. With the help of his new wife, Berthe and his old friend, the ground-breaking criminologist Hans Gross, Werthen delves into Vienna’s rich society of musicians to discover the identity of the person who has targeted one of Austria’s best-known artists. Soon Werthen discovers that Mahler might not be the first musical genius to be dispatched by this unknown killer. With the recent deaths of Johann Strauss and Johannes Brahms, the investigators fear a madman is killing the great musicians of Vienna.

Requiem in Vienna was provided to me by Bridget at Minotaur Books. I was not paid and this book is being donated to my local library