My Weekly Book

Sleeper - Paul Adam

Two things attracted me to this book - a positive feeling about the author from having read his novel Unholy Trinity some years before, and a glance at the back of the jacket which revealed that, actually, the world of international violin trading was rather an interesting milieu for a thriller. Admittedly, Unholy Trinity did appeal to me because of its strong resemblance to that other excellent thriller about the Vatican’s Secret Archives, the Tetramachus Collection by Philippe Van Rjndt. But that’s no bad thing - it’s a plot with quite enough excitement to spread across two thrillers - and, I am sure, many others that I haven’t read yet.

Come to think of it, wasn’t Angels and Demons… never mind.

But it’s a bit unfair to start a review of Sleeper by going on about the plot of Unholy Trinity. So, what’s special about this former book? For one, it’s got a nicely unusual protagonist, an elderly Italian luthier, or violin-maker disposed to look back reflectively over his life while deciding to make the most of the years left to him. Secondly it starts out in the violin Mecca of Cremona, in Lombardt, Italy (things in common with several of Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen novels here) before taking a tour around a large swathe of Europe as the hero tries to track down the murderer of a dear friend. Inevitably he becomes involved with a bunch of the most unscrupulous violin-dealing characters you could ever hope to meet and reveals a little about his own insalubrious past in the process. The novel comes to a climax as he finds himself on the track of the most elusive treasure of all - an elusive undiscovered Stradivari violin.

There’s enough meat in the murder to make the plot go without it being stomach-turning, the plot ties up into a beautifully neat bow and, perhaps most satisfying of all, the good get a helping hand by the time the last page is turned while the bad get their come-uppance. It’s an atmospheric and unusual page-turner and I’m glad to have read it. Definitely on the look-out for more by this author.

Some links:

• Italian Mysteries: Sleeper
• The Guardian: A Virtuoso Performance
• Fantastic Fiction: Paul Adams bibliography

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 11:24 am and is filed under 2007 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.