Dunlap, Susanne. The Musician's Daughter. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009.
For someone who likes music, mysteries, and gypsies, this book had everything I needed. It is set in Vienna during the late 18th century. The heroine, Theresa, is the daughter of a first violinist in the Esterházy orchestra. On the first page, or maybe the second, her father dies under mysterious circumstances. Setting out to find out the truth of her father's death, or at least what happened to his violin, Theresa embarks on an adventure leading her to a series of more and more unlikely places.
Bad news about this book...Dunlap insisted on speaking German, Hungarian, and what ever language the Gypsies spoke. It was kind of annoying to me because she didn't tell me what they were saying except for the one time I already knew. Grrr!
More bad news...the story wrapped up so beautifully at the end I was left thinking "Really? That's convenient. Seriously, you're going there?" and not in a good way. And then she said..."but that's another story" like some cheesy 50s serial..."Tune in next time when we find out if Theresa can escape the dreaded blah blah! Same battime same batchannel!" It made me want her to say, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch..." but she didn't.
What I liked best about this book was that the author has a PhD in music history from Yale and an some kind of music something-something from Smith (in other words, she's no moron). She incorporates a lot of that passion for music (and music history) into the story. "Theresa" talks about how music is how her soul speaks which, as a musician, I can appreciate. On the other hand, she longs for a violin rather than her viola. Which I think is crazy, violas are way prettier than violins.
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