I will admit that I am a lover of mysteries. I have read a good many series by such authors as Earl Emerson, G.M. Ford, and J.A. Jance, among many others (these happen to be writers whose series are largely set in the Pacific Northwest). I read other genres as well, but I always come back to mysteries. If they’re well-written, a detective series becomes like an old friend, with each new installment anxiously awaited. If you happen to stumble upon an established series, it’s even better, as you can binge read them one after the other!<\/p>\n It’s hard to read a work of fiction that covers an area in which you are, in literal terms, an expert. As a professional musician, I’m immersed in much of what Elias’ books use as their setting. I don’t like to see my life’s work trivialized or sensationalized. I’m sure that cops, doctors, and lawyers also take a similar attitude towards works that are set in their professional realm. I love books and tv shows about those professions, but I don’t have day-to-day intimate knowledge of what it’s like to be in those circumstances. I accept the false reality as it is present – I suspend my disbelief – and enjoy the stories as they unfold. It’s so much harder for me to do with books set in a musical domain. Music is hard to write about well. Music is intangible, which presents problems with many bad solutions, and few good ones. Many writers think that classical music\u00a0needs to be ‘sexed up’ in order to be interesting. It’s also rarely presented in a way that both the casual reader and the musical insider can enjoy. I have to say that Elias has neatly solved this problem. He writes very knowledgeably about many aspects of the classical music ‘industry’. Topics such as instrument making, instrument insurance, orchestral job satisfaction, difficulties in teaching, and the modern mess of classical music competitions are all covered in this series of books. He uses various characters to explain things in a way that feels natural. He doesn’t dumb down or talk down to the reader. He leads you along with a minimum of jargon.<\/p>\n I wrote earlier that Jacobus is not a terribly likable character. That’s not entirely accurate. He’s a curmudgeon with a heart that might have a bit of gold in it, but he’s holding on to that gold with a pretty tight grip. He has lost faith and trust in his fellow man, and so he exacts a high price from the people around him until he is assured that they won’t betray him. He says what’s on his mind, and doesn’t mind who he offends when he says it. Partly, he gets away with this due to his blindness. Who would take an elderly blind man to task, after all? We, as the reader, come to know that there is much in Jacobus that has resulted from his uncompromising demands upon himself – why would he bother to treat anyone else differently? His inner self is largely concerned with the pursuit of the highest quality of respect to the works of the great composers, and that also accounts for his similarly uncompromising approach to those with whom he (somewhat begrudgingly) shares the planet. As a result, he’s very much what you’d expect of a the hero of a hard-boiled detective story, except that he’s a classical violinist.<\/p>\n Elias has a wonderful way with dialogue in this series, and I love the joking that goes on early in\u00a0Playing with Fire<\/em>, between Jacobus, Nathaniel, and Yumi. I suspect that this reflects Elias’ love of wordplay and puns, just as his settings reflect his love of the Berkshire mountains and New York City. If you love classical music and mysteries, then you will very much love Gerald Elias’ Daniel Jacobus series, and his\u00a0latest,\u00a0Playing with Fire<\/em>, is just the latest success in a very competitive genre. Highly recommended!<\/p>\n Playing with Fire Disclosure: I’m a Amazon affiliate, and I get a tiny bit of credit for each purchase made via the links above.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A number of years ago, we had a guest concertmaster at the Sunriver Music Festival. He was a genial fellow, rock solid, and low key. His name was Gerald Elias – known as Gerry pretty quickly after one meets him. He had (and continues to have) a stellar musical career, he was a member of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3071,115,21],"tags":[3797,3074,3798,160],"class_list":["post-14332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-music","category-violin","tag-daniel-jacobus-mysteries","tag-gerald-elias","tag-playing-with-fire","tag-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3Ja","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7671,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/06\/18\/classical-mystery-tour\/","url_meta":{"origin":14332,"position":0},"title":"classical mystery tour","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I have always steered well clear of fiction books that have to do with the subject of classical music and its performers. They are usually written by non-professional musicians, and as a result, they tend to fawn over the process of making art. Performers are starving, beautiful, and possessed of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "books"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gerald Elias. Photo: Thomas Ahern","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/JerHomePagePic-300x254.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6565,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/06\/01\/concertmaster-jun-iwasaki-leaving-oregon-for-nashville-post\/","url_meta":{"origin":14332,"position":1},"title":"concertmaster jun iwasaki leaving oregon for nashville post","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Oregon Symphony concertmaster of four years Jun Iwasaki is leaving for a new post with the Nashville Symphony beginning with the 2011-2012 season. From the Nashville Symphony press release: Nashville Symphony has appointed Jun Iwasaki as the orchestra\u2019s new concertmaster. Currently concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony in Portland, he will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Iwasaki2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5584,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/11\/17\/what-makes-a-good-concertmaster\/","url_meta":{"origin":14332,"position":2},"title":"what makes a good concertmaster","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Dallas Symphony's blog has posted an interview with one of their guest concertmasters, Alex Kerr (formerly concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra), and he had this to say about the qualities desired in a concertmaster: The Dallas Symphony is currently searching for a permanent concertmaster.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/alexander_kerr.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7434,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/21\/former-concertmaster-to-join-oso-for-final-concerts-of-season\/","url_meta":{"origin":14332,"position":3},"title":"former concertmaster to join oso for final concerts of season","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"David Stabler of the Oregonian broke the story earlier today: A good friend returns to Portland to close out the final concert of the\u00a0Oregon Symphony's\u00a02011\/12 season. Violinist Jun Iwasaki is scheduled to appear as guest concertmaster to lead the players in Igor Stravinsky's famously furious \"Rite of Spring,\" May 20\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Iwasaki2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13227,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/02\/16\/wonderful-strauss\/","url_meta":{"origin":14332,"position":4},"title":"wonderful strauss","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Want to hear something great? Take a listen to the newly appointed 1st Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, Noah Bendix-Balgley, currently concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Newspaper article.","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":712,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/28\/inside-a-music-director-search\/","url_meta":{"origin":14332,"position":5},"title":"inside a music director search","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Frank Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony (and partial concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony), writes a very interesting entry in his blog about the recent search process that ended up with the surprise hiring of Edo de Waart as their next music director.","rel":"","context":"In "conducting"","block_context":{"text":"conducting","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/conducting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"frank6.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/frank6.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"playing-with-fire-gerald-elias\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Playing-with-Fire-Gerald-Elias.jpg\")
<\/a>In the fifth Daniel Jacobus book, we find Jacobus spending the Christmas holiday with his longtime friend and cellist, Nathaniel, and his former star student, Yumi, who is concertmaster of the New York Symphony. Their Christmas Eve chamber music reading is interrupted by a frantic call from the local violin maker, Amadeo Borlotti. His entreaty to come see Jacobus that evening is rebuffed. The next morning, it is discovered that Borlotti’s home and workshop had burned to the ground, and Borlotti is nowhere to be found. As Jacobus is well-known by the local constabulary as an amateur sleuth of some renown, and given the musical connections to\u00a0the fire, he is quickly enlisted to help track down just what happened to the disappeared luthier. The story then quickly unfolds. [I hate spoilers, so I’ll respect the prospective reader’s desire for a minimum of plot information.]<\/p>\n
\nby Gerald Elias
\nSevern House (Severn House Publishers)
\nISBN:\u00a09780727886149
\nHardcover: $28.99 [Amazon.com<\/a>]
\nKindle edition: $15.33 [Amazon.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n