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Playing with Fire: A Novel - Softcover

Gerritsen, Tess

 
9781101884362: Playing with Fire: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1101884363 ISBN 13: 9781101884362
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

A gripping standalone thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series

INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LOS ANGELES TIMES AND SUSPENSE MAGAZINE
 
In a shadowy antiques shop in Rome, violinist Julia Ansdell happens upon a curious piece of music—the Incendio waltz—and is immediately entranced by its unusual composition. Full of passion, torment, and chilling beauty, and seemingly unknown to the world, the waltz, its mournful minor key, its feverish arpeggios, appear to dance with a strange life of their own. Julia is determined to master the complex work and make its melody heard.
 
Back home in Boston, from the moment Julia’s bow moves across the strings, drawing the waltz’s fiery notes into the air, something strange is stirred—and Julia’s world comes under threat. The music has a terrifying and inexplicable effect on her young daughter, who seems violently transformed. Convinced that the hypnotic strains of Incendio are weaving a malevolent spell, Julia sets out to discover the man and the meaning behind the score.
 
Her quest beckons Julia to the ancient city of Venice, where she uncovers a dark, decades-old secret involving a dangerously powerful family that will stop at nothing to keep Julia from bringing the truth to light.

Praise for Playing with Fire
 
“Compelling . . . I defy you to read the first chapter and not singe your fingers reading the rest.”—David Baldacci
 
“One of the best and most original thrillers of the year.”—Providence Journal
 
“[A] novel brimming with emotion, literary description, and psychological suspense.”—The Huffington Post
 
“Will make readers drop everything to immerse themselves in its propulsive dual narrative.”—Los Angeles Times

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen earned international acclaim for her first novel of suspense, Harvest. She introduced detective Jane Rizzoli in The Surgeon (2001) and Dr. Maura Isles in The Apprentice (2002) and has gone on to write numerous other titles in the celebrated Rizzoli & Isles series, most recently The Mephisto Club, The Keepsake, Ice Cold, The Silent Girl, Last to Die, and Die Again. Her latest novel is the standalone thriller Playing with Fire. A physician, Tess Gerritsen lives in Maine.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

From the doorway I can already smell the scent of old books, a perfume of crumbling pages and time-­worn leather. The other antiques stores that I’ve passed on this cobblestoned alley have their air conditioners running and their doors closed against the heat, but this shop’s door is propped open, as if inviting me to enter. It’s my last afternoon in Rome, my last chance to pick up a souvenir of my visit. Already I’ve bought a silk tie for Rob and an extravagantly ruffled dress for our three-­year-­old daughter, Lily, but I haven’t found anything for myself. In the window of this antiques shop, I see exactly what I want.

I step into gloom so thick that my eyes need a moment to adjust. Outside it’s sweltering, but in here it’s strangely cool, as though I’ve entered a cave where neither heat nor light can penetrate. Slowly, shapes take form in the shadows and I see book-­crammed shelves, old steamer trunks, and in the corner a medieval suit of tarnished armor. On the walls hang oil paintings, all of them garish and ugly and adorned with yellowed price tags. I don’t notice that the proprietor is standing in the alcove, so I’m startled when he suddenly calls out to me in Italian. I turn and see a little gnome of a man with eyebrows like snowy caterpillars.

“I’m sorry,” I answer. “Non parlo Italiano.”

“Violino?” He points to the violin case that I have strapped to my back. It’s far too valuable an instrument to leave in my hotel room and I always keep it with me while traveling. “Musicista?” he asks and plays air fiddle, his right arm sawing back and forth with a phantom bow.

“Yes, I’m a musician. From America. I performed this morning, at the festival.” Though he nods politely, I don’t think he actually understands me. I point to the item I spotted in his display window. “Could I see that book? Libro. Musica.”

He reaches into the window display for the book of music and hands it to me. I know it’s old, by the way the edges of the paper crumble at my touch. The edition is Italian, and on its cover is the word Gypsy and an image of a shaggy-­haired man playing the violin. I open it to the first tune, which is written in a minor key. The piece is unfamiliar, a plaintive melody that my fingers are already itching to play. Yes, this is what I’m always on the hunt for, old music that’s been forgotten and deserves to be rediscovered.

As I flip through the other tunes, a loose page falls out and flutters to the floor. Not part of the book, it is a sheet of manuscript paper, its staves thick with musical notes jotted in pencil. The composition’s title is handwritten in elegantly swooping letters.

Incendio, composed by L. Todesco.

As I read the music, I can hear the notes in my head and within a few measures, I know this waltz is beautiful. It starts as a simple melody in E minor. But at measure sixteen, the music grows more complex. By measure sixty, notes start to pile on notes and there are jarring accidentals. I flip to the other side and every measure is dense with pencil marks. A lightning-­quick string of arpeggios launches the melody into a frantic maelstrom of notes that make the hairs suddenly rise on my arms.

I must have this music.

“Quanto costa?” I ask. “For this page and for the book as well?”

The proprietor watches me with a canny gleam in his eyes. “Cento.” He pulls out a pen and writes the number on his palm.

“A hundred euros? You can’t be serious.”

“E’ vecchio. Old.”

“It’s not that old.”

His shrug tells me I can take it or leave it. He’s already seen the hunger in my eyes; he knows he can charge me an outrageous price for this crumbling volume of Gypsy tunes and I’ll pay it. Music is my only extravagance. I have no interest in jewelry or designer clothes and shoes; the only accessory I truly value is the hundred-­year-­old violin now strapped to my back.

He hands me a receipt for my purchase and I walk out of the shop, into afternoon heat that’s as cloying as syrup. How odd that I felt so cold inside. I look back at the building, but I don’t see any air conditioner, just closed windows and twin gargoyles perched above the pediment. A shard of sunlight bounces back at me, reflected from the brass Medusa-­head knocker. The door is now closed, but through the dusty window I glimpse the proprietor looking at me, just before he drops the shade and vanishes from sight.

...

My husband, Rob, is thrilled with the new tie I bought him in Rome. He stands at our bedroom mirror, expertly looping lustrous silk around his neck. “This is just the thing I need to jazz up a boring meeting,” he says. “Maybe these colors will keep them all awake when I start going over the numbers.” At thirty-­eight, he’s as lean and fit as the day we married, although the last ten years have added streaks of silver to his temples. In his starched white shirt and gold cuff links, my Boston-­bred husband looks exactly like the meticulous accountant he is. He’s all about numbers: profits and losses, assets and debts. He sees the world in mathematical terms, and even the way he moves has a precise geometry to it, his tie swinging an arc, crisscrossing into a perfect knot. How different we are! The only numbers I care about are symphony and opus numbers and the time signatures on my music. Rob tells everyone that’s why he was attracted to me, because unlike him, I’m an artist and air creature who dances in the sunshine. I used to worry that our differences would tear us apart, that Rob, who keeps his feet so firmly planted on the ground, would grow weary of keeping his air-­creature wife from floating away into the clouds. But ten years later, here we are, still in love.

He smiles at me in the mirror as he tightens the knot at his throat. “You were awake awfully early this morning, Julia.”

“I’m still on Rome time. It’s already twelve noon there. That’s the upside of jet lag. Just think of all the things I’ll get done today.”

“I predict you’ll be ready to collapse by lunchtime. You want me to drive Lily to day care?”

“No, I want to keep her home today. I feel guilty about being away from her all week.”

“You shouldn’t. Your aunt Val swooped in and took care of everything, the way she always does.”

“Well, I missed her like crazy and I want to spend every minute with her today.”

He turns to show me his new tie, perfectly centered on his collar. “What’s on the agenda?”

“It’s so hot, I think we’ll go to the pool. Maybe drop into the library and choose some new books.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He bends to kiss me, and his clean-­shaven face smells tart with citrus. “I hate it when you’re gone, babe,” he murmurs. “Maybe next time, I’ll take the week off and we’ll go together. Wouldn’t that be a lot more—­”

“Mommy, look! Look how pretty!” Our three-­year-­old daughter, Lily, dances into the bedroom and swirls around in the new dress I brought her from Rome, the dress that she tried on last night and now refuses to take off. Without warning she launches herself like a missile into my arms and we both tumble onto the bed, laughing. There is nothing so sweet as the smell of my own child, and I want to inhale every molecule of her, absorb her back into my own body so we can...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1101884363
ISBN 13 
9781101884362
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
320
Kontakt zum Hersteller
SC
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41
Madrid
Madrid
Spanien