Blood Harmonies

A psychological suspense novel

by Melanie Garrett

I’m currently researching a suspense novel set in London, with the working title Blood Harmonies.

On the surface, it’s about a young violinist who finds a dark secret from her past suddenly building to a devastating reprise.  But like all psychological novels the plot is sitting on the surface of a much darker foundation, and what the book is really about is the tragic consequences which can spill over if our true natures are silenced.

The Mendel Quartet is made up of two brothers, their niece, and a close family friend.  They are attached to an internationally renowned Conservatory of Music in London, which is also happens to be home to a priceless collection of musical instruments which were bequeathed to the Conservatory immediately after the war.   Strangely, one of the conditions of the bequeath was that the instruments must never be played again.  Some months before the novel opens, a new luthier has been appointed, and unbeknownst to most, he is working clandestinely with one of the brothers.  They plan to ‘liberate’ the instruments in the museums collection.  (On paper, the plan seems foolproof.  The luthier will replicate the instruments, which they will then substitute for the originals when the instruments are scheduled to be stored in a vault prior to refurbishments in the building.  Once they have the originals, the brother will then quietly distribute over time while the quartet are on tour.)

However as the novel opens, the brother who is conspiring with the luthier, dies unexpectedly.  One of the many unforeseen consequences of his death is that his niece Zoe (currently the viola player in the quartet) suddenly gains access to information which causes her to become suspicious about her mother’s death.  In the coming weeks she begins to question everything about her past, while at the same time, embarking on a dangerous relationship with Stefan, a musician who has come to London to study under the luthier.  Although he says nothing to begin with, Stefan is also planning to audition for a place in the quartet.  But what neither Stefan, nor Zoe’s surviving uncle, are expecting, is that she has also decided to audition.  After a lifetime of dutifully playing viola as her uncles have always insisted, she now plans to claim what she sees as her rightful place, the role of second violin in the family quartet -  like her mother before her.

With his accomplice dead, the luthier must lure Zoe and Stefan into his plan to steal and redistribute the silenced instruments.  But what no one has foreseen how the plan will come tragically unstuck as the truth surrounding Zoe’s mother’s finally comes to light.  Blood Harmonies is a novel about the dangers inherent in letting others call your tune, and the freedom that comes with self-expression.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Read about what inspired me to write this novel on my behind-the-scenes blog.

Meet the Messiah

Completed by Stradivarius in 1716, the Messiah, which you see here, has been described as the world’s most coveted, and copied, violin. 

The light you can see reflected on its veneer are due, in part, to the fact that the picture was shot through the walls of the glass case it now hangs in at the Ashmolean Musuem in Oxford.  The terms of the will bequeathing the violin to the museum stipulate that it cannot be played.

Novel soundtrack

As you can imagine, I’ve been listening to a lot more chamber music of late.  In particular, I have become addicted to the CD which came with Arnold Steinhardt’s delightful book, Violin Dreams.  In it, he describes Bach’s Chaconne as the Holy Grail for the solo violinist.  The featured tracks are therefore, two Chaconnes, both recorded by Steinhardt, forty years apart. When my agent Meg Davis, who is herself a musician, happened to ask me what I was listening to on my iPod when we met one day last summer, and I said it was the Chaconne, she smiled and said, ‘Good thinking.  Bach defrags your brain.’

Bach defrags your brain.  I love that.

Contemporary violin composers

I also love Steve Reich’s amazing Different Trains, in which he considers what his own fate might have been had he been brought up in Europe instead of America at a time when so many trains were carrying Jewish children to concentration camps.  And the Daniel Variations he wrote at the request of the father of the murdered American hostage Daniel Pearl are equally insipirational.  Both pieces manage to somehow be both harrowing and yet transcendental at the same time.