Shopping cart

Checkout

$0.00
1 | $x.00
empty cart image

Search via Google

The Mastersinger from Minsk – By Morley Torgov

An Inspector Hermann Preiss Mystery

By Morley Torgov

Overview More Info Titles in this series
Cover for The Mastersinger from Minsk

It is late March 1868. In Munich, composer Richard Wagner is completing his new opera Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg. It has been a difficult few years for him, and much depends upon the success of this new work. Following the tense auditions, an anonymous note warns Wagner that the premiere will be the date of his ruination.

Enter Inspector Hermann Preiss, who discovers a complication. Her name is Cornelia Vanderhoute, and she claims to have been made pregnant after a typical brief Wagner fling.

A series of murders of people involved in the new production suggests Cornelia is carrying out a deadly program of revenge. Even Wagner and his wife are threatened. Will Preiss succeed in discovering the writer of the note? Will he manage to prevent the murder of Wagner, and what will happen on the night of the premiere?

GET SUPPORT MATERIAL / BUY THIS BOOK

  • Amazon Kindle: eBook $8.99
  • Kobo: eBook – EPUB $8.99
  • Paperback $19.99
Go to Vendor Add To Cart
| Share

Awards and prizes

Bony Blithe Award (2013)
Bony Blithe Award (2013)

Reviews and comments on
The Mastersinger from Minsk

The second Hermann Preiss novel by Morley Torgov, set in 19th-century Munich, is even better than the first makes for a great story.

The Globe and Mail
June 2, 2012

…adds to the world’s store of crime novels that coat knowledge – about music, opera, and the life of Wagner specifically – in a delicious wrapper of entertainment and mild suspense. It can never be a bad thing to have fun while learning or vice versa – by depicting the lively, competitive and sometimes fraught lives of the great composers, and Torgov gives readers exactly that gift.

The London Free Press
August 11, 2012

“[Mastersinger of Minsk]is worthy of Hitchcock in the way it uses the interpretation of a song as a plot device −rather like Die Meistersinger itself for that matter.”

Wholenote magazine
September 7, 2012

As a crime investigation novel, The Mastersinger from Minsk works well with nicely rounded intriguing characters, a coherent plot, and a mainly reasonable resolution. But its other virtue is that it adds to the world’s store of crime novels that coat knowledge about music, opera, and the life of Wagner specifically in a delicious wrapper of entertainment and mild suspense.

Daily Press
August 23, 2012

It’s a dangerous business for a novelist to mix real history and imaginary crimes. The combination of the two almost demands that the story be treated with a touch of humour, but that doesn’t mean the author is allowed to get cute on us. Torgov has just the right feel for this kind of writing, never coy, solid with his history but not allowing the facts to get in the way of a good joke.

Toronto Star