Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer
Writing music is murder in novelist and musician Stace�s thriller set in 1920s Great Britain. As the novel opens, the premiere of gifted young composer Charles Jessold�s new opera, Little Musgrave, is upstaged, in the deadliest of ways, when Jessold kills his wife and her lover, then takes his own life. More shocking still: the composer�s brutal crimes are strikingly similar to those portrayed in his new work. Narrated by a respected music critic, Leslie Shepherd, Stace�s latest offering recounts the years leading up to Jessold�s crime, as Shepherd relishes (and occasionally dreads) his role as the composer�s collaborator and friend. What was it that pushed Jessold over the edge? Was he having an affair with Shepherd�s lovely wife, or was the pair�s relationship simply one of artist and muse? Stace (By George, 2007) starts with a bang (literally), but the tale loses some momentum as Shepherd belabors the details of his own life. Still, music-history fans will enjoy Stace�s take on the emergence of modernism in concert venues across prewar Europe. --Allison Block