The Sound of Red Returning
A Novel
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
After losing everyone she loves, concert pianist Liesl Bower has nowhere to go but to escape into her music. Searching for the peace she usually finds in her concertos and sonatas, Liesl can't shake the feeling that she is being haunted by her past . . . and by someone following her. When she spots a familiar and eerie face in the audience of a concert she's giving for the president in Washington, DC, the scariest day of her life comes back to her with a flash. It has been fifteen years since Liesl watched her beloved Harvard music mentor assaulted on a dark night in Moscow and just as long since the CIA disclosed to her that he'd been spying for Russia. She had seen that man—that eerie face—the night Professor Devoe was attacked. And now he’s back—and coming for her.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Duffy (Fatal Loyalty) opens a new series with pianist Liesl Bower, who is thrust into danger after a concert at the White House brings back a face from her past. Fifteen years earlier, her music teacher was murdered and she learned that he had been a spy for Russia His system for transmitting information involved sheet music, a piece of which is in Liesl's possession, making her a target for rogue Russians seeking to restore a Soviet regime. That plot extends to Israel and depends on a mole in that country's defense establishment. Liesl has family trauma in her past as well, and everything comes to a crescendo once the CIA steps in to protect her. Duffy has concocted an intricate plot, and not every thread is equally well developed. A villain in a key position doesn't convince, and the Israel connection is underplumbed. The characterizations, though, mostly work: old Ian O'Brien steals the show. A very pious president will warm Christian hearts but leave others unpersuaded. The pop-pop-pop of surprise resolutions at the end makes a fine coda.
