I remember reading The
Mozart Score by Edwin Leather years ago so when I saw it in a used book
store, I picked it up to re-read it but I didn’t recall any of the story.
First, I’ll say that I did enjoy reading it again. It’s a sort of a spy novel but without the undercover
antics and intelligence as in Daniel Silva or Brad Thor. The story centers on the kidnapping of an Israeli
scientist Karl Reuben by Arab terrorists.
Did I mention this was published in 1977? This takes place before the fall of the Iron
Curtain and the Soviet Union. Soviet bloc
countries are still shrouded in secrecy and distrust of everyone. Rupert Conway is an art dealer in Vienna and
gets involved in the search for the scientist, since Conway is a friend of Rueben’s
father. The search takes them across
Austria, Yugoslavia and Albania.
Second, the story was exciting for most of it, but the ultimate
climax was rather disappointing.
Third, his writing, although full of rich details of the
country and cities in southeast Europe, breaks the cardinal rule of showing
rather than telling. The omniscient
narrator is pervasive throughout the story.
It made the head hops not nearly as distracting as in previous
novels.
Fourth, the opening scene in which a man is murdered during
a Mozart performance in Vienna is not resolved until the last page, literally,
and it seems almost an afterthought, as if Leather realized he hadn’t addressed
it since the second chapter.
Lastly, the Mozart score in the novel has nothing to do with
the novel.
Leather also wrote a book The Vienna Elephant but I don’t
think I’ll read it.
Two 𝅘𝅥𝅮 out of five.
