The Mozart Conspiracy

My husband passed along this thriller because he thought I would be intrigued by the premise of questioning Mozart's death.  The Mozart Conspiracy (#104) by Scott Mariani follows "rescue and retrieval" specialist Ben Hope, former British Army Special Forces major as he responds to a desperate phone call from former flame Leigh Llewellyn.  Her brother Oliver died in a tragic accident in Vienna several years ago.  Ben remembers it well as Oliver was his best friend and the last time he saw Leigh was at his funeral.  Now Leigh is being stalked in London.  Is it because Leigh is a renowned opera diva, or could it have something to do with the research Oliver was working on for his book on Mozart's death?  Ben promises to help as they race around Europe barely ahead of their shadowy pursuers.

This is a very high body count thriller - ritual murder, murders arranged to look like suicides or accidents, collateral damage.  You do have suspend disbelief as you're reading because the bad guys really can't be everywhere, can they?  Well yes, in this book they are.  Of course our hero Ben Hope has incredible physical endurance and the skills to help him evade his enemies.  And Leigh is not only an established opera star and former flame, but wealthy and beautiful, too.  (Do any of these heroes ever bother to rescue women who aren't a 20 on the 1 - 10 scale?)  And then there's Ben's nemesis from his SAS days.  He's working for the enemy, but wants to kill Ben - slowly and painfully - just for the fun of it.  I did still keep turning the pages, though!

The book did raise an interesting question, though.  Did Mozart die of natural causes, or was he murdered?  He himself suspected that he was being poisoned and his son later claimed that he was. It could be, and Mr. Mariani states his opinion on the subject in the concluding Author's Note.  The document at the heart of the novel is being hunted because it may provide the proof.

One note of interest after I looked up Scott Mariani.  This is the only book by Mr. Mariani that our library has and I had never heard of him before.  He's really a jack-of-all trades himself before he turned to writing professionally.  You can tell he had confidence in his own talents since the second book he published was How To Write A Thriller!  There are other Ben Hope novels out there and I may just track them down.