Get Free eBook Sample
LAURA LEBOW studied European history at Brandeis University and earned a Master in City Planning from MIT. After a career as an environmental policy analyst, she now writes historical mysteries full-time. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and an ever-expanding collection of opera CDs. The Figaro Murders is her first novel.
The Figaro Murders: A Novel
by Laura Lebow
eBook
$7.99
-
ISBN-13:
9781466856196
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press
- Publication date: 03/31/2015
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 336
- File size: 1 MB
Available on NOOK devices and apps
Want a NOOK? Explore Now
7.99
In Stock
In 1786 Vienna, Lorenzo Da Ponte is the court librettist for the Italian Theatre during the height of the enlightened reign of Emperor Joseph II. This exalted position doesn't mean he's particularly well paid, or even out of reach of the endless intrigues of the opera world. In fact, far from it.
One morning, Da Ponte stops off at his barber, only to find the man being taken away to debtor's prison. Da Ponte impetuously agrees to carry a message to his barber's fiancée and try to help her set him free, even though he's facing pressures of his own. He's got one week to finish the libretto for The Marriage of Figaro for Mozart before the opera is premiered for the Emperor himself.
Da Ponte visits the house where the barber's fiancée works--the home of a nobleman, high in the Vienna's diplomatic circles--and then returns to his own apartments, only to be dragged from his rooms in the middle of the night. It seems the young protégé of the diplomat was killed right about the time Da Ponte was visiting, and he happens to be their main suspect. Now he's given a choice--go undercover into the household and uncover the murderer, or be hanged for the crime himself.
Brilliantly recreating the cultural world of late 18th century Vienna, the epicenter of the Enlightenment, Lebow brings to life some of the most famous figures of music, theatre, and politics.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
-
- Cradle to Grave
- by Eleanor Kuhns
-
- City of Devils: A Novel
- by Diana Bretherick
-
- The Devil in Montmartre: A…
- by Gary Inbinder
-
- The Book of Fires: A Medieval…
- by Paul Doherty
-
- Candle Flame: A novel of…
- by Paul Doherty
-
- Strangled in Paris (Victor…
- by Claude Izner
-
- Sent to the Devil: A Mystery
- by Laura Lebow
-
- Death and the Cyprian Society
- by Pamela Christie
-
- Death Among Rubies
- by R. J. Koreto
-
- Blade of the Samurai: A…
- by Susan Spann
-
- The Straw Men
- by Paul Doherty
-
- Bloodstone: A Brother…
- by Paul Doherty
-
- The Great Revolt: A mystery…
- by Paul Doherty
-
- King Devil
- by Charlotte MacLeod
-
- A Pilgrimage of Murder: A…
- by Paul Doherty
-
- The Fall and Rise of Lucy…
- by Elizabeth Gill
-
- Death in Saratoga Springs
- by Charles O'Brien
Recently Viewed
Publishers Weekly
01/12/2015Ably evoking the vital, music-obsessed Vienna of 1786, Lebow’s debut finds theater poet Lorenzo Da Ponte working with Mozart to finish the libretto for The Marriage of Figaro. When an attempt to save a friend from debtor’s prison takes Da Ponte to the home of politician Christof Gabler, he has a contentious encounter with Gabler’s young page, Florian Auerstein. After Florian is pushed from a window to his death hours later, Da Ponte is arrested. The police offer him a choice: face certain conviction, or live in the Palais Gabler to unmask the murderer. Once in residence at the Palais as a poetry teacher, he falls in love with Gabler’s beguiling wife, Caroline. Threats and assaults don’t deter his investigations into the household’s many intrigues. Meanwhile, rivals sabotage his career as a librettist, and inquiries for his bankrupt friend uncover dark secrets. The likable Da Ponte offers an insider’s perspective on a fascinating world, though overelaborate subplots muddle the main story line. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (Mar.)
Kirkus Reviews
2015-01-07A librettist-turned-reluctant detective sees the characters of his latest opera come to life and just as quickly die.Although Lorenzo Da Ponte enjoys the goodwill of the Emperor Joseph II and has earned some fame in Vienna as the Court Theater poet, he lives in exile from his beloved Venice. Scraping by on commissions and counting every florin, he longs for enough success in his collaboration with Wolfgang Mozart on The Marriage of Figaro to be able to buy a decent dress suit. When his barber, Johann Vogel, asks for his help, the kindly poet agrees to visit the palais of Baron Gabler, Vogel's former employer, to find out something about Vogel's birth mother. Vogel is convinced that she was a noblewoman and that somehow the family connection will help him pay off his debt to Gabler's coldhearted housekeeper so that he can be released from prison and marry Baroness Gabler's pretty young maid. The situation becomes more complicated when the baron's impudent page, Florian Auerstein, is pushed out a window and killed. Florian, the only son of a prince, was being groomed for an important diplomatic mission with the baron, and Emperor Joseph's minister of police forces Da Ponte to pose as Baroness Gabler's poetry instructor—on pain of being tried for Florian's murder himself—to ferret out a spy within the household. At the same time Da Ponte is trying to finish the Figaro libretto, link a medallion to the mystery of Vogel's birth, and make sense of a cryptic notebook of Florian's, he falls in love with the lovely, unhappy wife of the womanizing baron. As secrets come to light, including one or two of Da Ponte's, the librettist finds himself no closer to an answer but very much a target for a killer. A brisk tempo, a sympathetic hero and a plot as complicated as the beloved opéra bouffe it parallels will make Lebow's debut resonate with opera lovers and lay readers alike.