Italian holocaust
When an author finds his or her niche in literature, we expect them to keep to it. Readers are disconcerted when Grisham writes about something other than law, le Carré other than espionage, McNab war, etc. Dr Tess Gerritsen earned her laurels penning medical mysteries. However, in Playing With Fire, she breaks the mould.
To be sure Tess keeps her hand in with a bit of brain surgery, yet hospitals are hardly mentioned. Rather, music is the theme with lengthy flashbacks to the horrors of the Holocaust. Julia Ansdell is a modern day American violinist playing a concert in Rome.
Buying a book in an antique bookshop, a sheet of music slips out, a waltz, and 300 pages are devoted to her learning about the composer. Her investigation takes her to Venice, where she settles down. The bookseller is murdered and she is attacked.
Julia is approached by Jewish Nazi-hunters, still on the job of tracking down and bringing to justice Nazi fugitives. She is given an earful about the Holocaust, before and during World War II. Lorenzo Todesco, the composer, was among the thousands of victims.
Taking a leaf from Playing For Time, perhaps without realising it, Tess describes how the SS had musician inmates play music to drown out the screams of their fellow inmates being killed. Julia learns that one of the contemporary candidates for prime minister is from a family of Nazi sympathisers, causing him to withdraw.
The author’s point is that Italy had less anti-Semitism than most European countries, often aiding rather than informing on their assimilated Jews.
This reviewer rates Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto among the best music of that period. It’s unclear whether Lorenzo’s Fire is real or imaginary. If real, I’d like to hear it.
Presumably, the author will return to writing medical thrillers. With millions of victims — Jews, homosexuals, gypsies — Holocaust stories are a long way from being played out. As two-legged monsters go, Hitler will never be equalled.