I'm starting to realize that I pretty much complain about books in these reviews, which isn't totally fair. I've read, what, thousands of books in my life? It takes a lot to impress me these days. Did Devil's Trill? It's a very mixed bag.

I think my favorite part about the book was the writing style (aside from a few stilted-sounding conversations). It was a genuinely fun read, with lovely descriptions and a quick-moving plot, even if not one that was always easy to follow. Plenty of remarkable characters to enjoy, which I always like, and it doesn't hurt that I happen to have attended my first concert at Carnegie Hall last week, so I was able to imagine what one of they key settings looked like.

I didn't really take the mystery seriously--the crotchety main character didn't seem to, so why should I? Yeah, there were some obvious leaps that I made the moment the clue showed up, but there also just didn't seem to be enough information to get to the actual killer. But that didn't stop me from enjoying the supporting characters: Nathaniel, Yumi, Kate, Goldbloom. I really think that they, along with the settings, provided the main structure to the stories.

Which brings me to the main character, Jacobus. I couldn't quite understand why he was such an ornery old man. I mean, it was fun at times, but I just feel like the House-type character is way too overdone these days: the irascible grump with a grey past and heart of gold. He even had the deductive reasoning thing you see in all these Sherlock Holmes wanna-bes. Which, yeah, I guess that kind of goes with the mystery aspect and might go a little way to explaining why the heck Nathaniel thought he might be more help than hindrance...but still.

It was also exhausting to see a book that otherwise had some decent diversity devolve when it came to the women. At least we had them, and they weren't even all white, but they could be disappointingly shallow, mean, sex-on-legs, and inexplicably attracted to the main character. Only one romance seemed interesting: that between Jacobus and Kate. How often do we get to see older people fall in like-and-maybe-more with each other? But it was just weird, during their heart to heart, to have read about how Kate's granddaughter had been fantasizing about this horribly rude guy three times her age. The only other women with more than just bit parts were a) killed, b) the murderer. Yippee.

Anyway, I'm always complaining about the romance, aren't I? I guess what's disappointing about this book was that I actually really liked the second but was so weirded out by the first.

I love Nathaniel and Kate. IRAWBAT (I'd Read A Whole Book About Them). Kind of wish one of them had been the main character. It could have been fun to have everything from Nathaniel's point of view--trying to wrangle this weird friend, confronting cultural discord, enjoying all sorts of music, reading people. Kate obviously couldn't have this whole story, but I'd certainly be happy to read the story of her life.

Okay, one last complaint and then I'll get started on the quotes. This is a book about a blind guy, right? Granted, we do get a few chapters from other perspectives, but for the most part it's third person limited, over Jacobus's shoulder. So why the heck are there so many visual descriptions in his sections? The man's blind! There's so much potential for interesting writing there, and I do think there's enough evidence in the book that Elias could have done it, but for some reason no one seemed to twig that, hey, maybe a blind guy, even an incredibly perceptive one, wouldn't know that the awning outside his hotel is green.

17) green plaid flannel shirt...brown Naugahyde...browning the leaves...
The first page on which we meet Jacobus, our blind protagonist, and we get all these visual descriptions. Green plaid? You could focus on the fact that it's well-worn and soft. Brown leather? (I think it's leather.) You could leave it at the fact that it's torn. Browning leaves? How about telling us that they're falling early and unusually crunchy? Maybe the local TV stations are complaining about the impact this will have on New England fall tourism. There are, in fact, ways to write around the few things that Jacobus should not be able to deduce about his surroundings. (Don't worry, I didn't point out every single instance of this--some were even explained as being places that Jacobus had visited before going blind (123), but not all.

82) Jacobus arrived at the Carnegie Deli to claim his pound of fleisch.
Okay, that was pretty funny.
Yumi reluctantly accepted an offer from Williams to stay overnight at his spacious apartment on East Ninety-sixth Street.
Oh no, no way. You cannot convince me that a 19-year-old girl, already dragged to New York City (in the 80s!) from Massachusetts by her incredibly rude and unpredictable violin teacher would consent to stay, alone, with a complete stranger who, no matter how nice, is a friend of said rude and unpredictable violin teacher. No freakin' way.

109-110) In the 1940s, Jacobus and Nathaniel are touring with a woman as a classical trio. In one small town, the person who invited them takes one look at Nathaniel, a black man, and demands that they make their trio a duo. Jacobus goes along with it. The entire story is told wonderfully by Nathaniel's character, but here's the best bit:
"[Jacobus] announces, 'For my first number I would like to play the spiritual "Deep River," so beautifully sung by the great Negro opera singer, Marian Anderson.' When he finished 'Deep River', he announces that he would like to play 'a transcription of "Ol' Man River," composed by the Jew Jerome Kern and made famous by the Negro Communist Paul Robeson.' After that he says, 'Next I'd like to play the Second Prelude by another Jewish composer, George Gershwin, which is based on the Negro blues style, and arranged by the Russian-Jewish violinist Jascha Heifetz.' Then, 'Next, the slow movement of the Violin Sonata by Aaron Copland, who is not only Jewish, but I think he's homosexual as well.' Finally, 'Speaking of homosexuals, for my final number I'd like to perform "Serenade Melancolique" by Peter Tchaikovsky, perhaps the greatest homosexual composer of all.'"
Drops mic.

216) The birds, disturbed by the intrusion of strangers in the middle of the night, began to chirp pugnaciously, defending their nest.
I just really, really like "chirp pugnaciously," okay? I can just see this puffy, ruffled, affronted-looking sparrow. And that's not a phrase you can read easily out loud--the two "p"s practically bring the phrase to a halt, so this is really just a fun little pair of words that I get to enjoy in my head.

222) Jacobus placed index fingers next to each other directly in front of him on the edge of the table, then moved them apart until his hands reached the corners. Having gauged the table's size, he proceeded to nimbly feel around the setting in front of him.
It's two thirds of the way into the book, but this is the first time I really felt like Jacobus was blind. It's the first time he's actually doing something ordinary to show us how he lives independently. Up until now we've had no hint that he has a cane, there are colors and visual descriptions all over his sections of the text, he's able to walk confidently through the streets of New York City. Maybe that last is possible possible, but his blindness just hasn't seemed believeable until now. Look, I live in NYC. I've passed blind and/or visually impaired people while we're going about our business. I'm sure most if not all of them had heightened senses to compensate for the loss of one, and I'm sure some of them were incredibly smart. Doesn't change the fact that they needed canes, if for no other reason than to keep people from jostling them on the sidewalk as rudely and roughly as they would anyone else. Seriously, how am I expected to believe that Jacobus has the number of steps between blocks memorized when I'm hard put to walk in a straight line down my sleepy little Sesame Street neighborhood? I have to dodge kids, pets, people paying attention to something in their hands (no cell phones in the 80s, but I'm sure people were still distracted), bikes, skateboards, sidewalk cafes, bundles of trash on garbage day, and people just generally not paying attention. So when we finally get to this point in the book and have a realistic-sounding explanation of how he makes his way through the world, it's a breath of fresh air. One that gets fouled up a few sentences later when he's picking through "elegant red-lacquered and blue-and-white porcelain bowls." Ugh. Also, I just thought of this...how does he pull his "clumsy blind man trick" if he doesn't have the number one visual cue that people associate with blindness: a cane? In just sunglasses, he could just be drunk or something. Hey, it's New York.

253) "These people...were like the Eta of Japan. Do you know who the Eta are, Mr. Jacobus?"
"Yumi!"
"See? We don't even talk about them here. They're the hidden undercaste of Japan who work with corpses--butchers, leatherworkers, gravediggers who live in the poor dark fringes of our cities. Do you know what Eta is in English? 'Full of filth'."
Every so often I come across something that reminds me of the stories that I have percolating in my head. ( )

I'm not quite sure of what to say about this book, so I'll just list the good and bad points about it.
The good things about this book is that there are rich descriptions about... well, pretty much everything. You can see that the author actually did some research about Japanese culture (even if the presence of it seemed slightly forced towards the end of the book) and I give him a standing ovation to what concerns musical description. The musical experience is not limited to "the song was pleasant" or "the violin was not correctly tuned". The playing style described almost felt like perfume description, which is very nice, specially considering that, well, the center point of this book is a violin and violins do deserve a rich description of sound experiences. As a fiction and a "mystery" book, it was pretty neat. The reader does not feel "left out" of the story and can work with the main character to think of who the "mysterious violin thief" might be, so much that there are several hints spread throughout the book.

What I didn't really like the book: the characters. I have nothing against a middle-aged grumpy blind man who doesn't follow the pattern of the several other pleasant pretty-boy protagonists of teenage romances. What bothers me is the fact that Daniel Jacobus, the main character of the story, in certain points of the story is even prepotent. The guy is blind, but does everything, knows everything, fears nothing, feels nothing. Not that I was expecting too much angst and suffering lingering over a sad past, but much of his intelligence got to an absurd level in which he could actually predict which was the color of every single object he touched. As much as someone might have a really good memory, things just don't work like that, specially considering that he was not born a blind man. I'm not condemning it, I just didn't find it justifiable. I really don't think deduction has all that power. As for the other characters, it felt like they were... cold and empty. They're there just because they need to be there, because the main character needs support characters and someone to be the villain. I couldn't find any character that made me feel deeply interested, either by their roles on the story or by being who they were. They were just story elements.
Another thing I have to complain about: so OK, the book's name is "Devil's Trill", but did this really matter? The song itself didn't have much meaning or importance in the story, it was just... there. Oh, nice, so Yumi plays this song a couple of times, Jacobus makes a couple of comments about it, but that's that. The song itself and its story and meaning don't have much of a connection with the main story. In my opinion, the Sicilliene made more difference for the story than the Devil's Trill.

To sum it all up, this book may be a good option for the ones who like Dan Brown's story, but I didn't find it so good so that I will read it a second time. ( )

Prodigy violinist Daniel Jacobus was on the pathway to a great career as a performer. He had been an extremely talented youngster who on the eve of his audition for the concertmaster position of the Boston Symphony Orchestra when he developed a leakage of blood and fluid into his eye. Blinded by ambition as well he played his audition from memory since he couldn’t see the music. He won the position, but despite extensive medical treatments his eyesight failed to return.

Jacobus, after a lengthy period of isolation and withdrawal declared his intension to be a teacher. In a way he was given lemons and from them he decided to make music. Unfortunately he himself remained a lemon. He was sour, tart and bitter.

After a competition a lovely violin was stolen. Jacobus was present at the time and he came under suspicion. He always appeared to be a destitute vagabond, so most people avoided him. He did not spend much time on personal hygiene and was treated often as invisible. When it suited him he would do his “blind man’s shuffle” which was useful to garner himself some sympathy. It didn’t do to underestimate Jacobus for despite his blindness his others senses were very keen and his mind was sharp. Jacobus teamed up with his friend Nathaniel Williams to find the strad.

This is also a story of how Jacobus begins to shed his cocoon and get involved with life once again. There is mysteries n his past that have yet to be revealed and put to rest that has troubled him for decades. The next in the series is Danse Macabre.
( )

Awful ( )

Daniel Jacobus is a blind, reclusive, crotchety violin teacher living in self-imposed exile in rural New England. He spends his time chain-smoking, listening to old LPs, and occasionally taking on new students, whom he berates in the hope that they will flee.

Jacobus is drawn back into the world he left behind when he decides to attend The Grimsley Competition at Carnegie Hall. The young winner of this competition is granted the honor of playing the Piccolino Stradivarius, a uniquely dazzling three-quarter-size violin that has brought misfortune to all who possessed it over the centuries. But the violin is stolen before the winner of the competition has a chance to play it, and Jacobus is the primary suspect.

Devil's Trill started out strong and interesting, talking about the history of the Piccolino Stradivarius and drawing out the characters. It slowed down some as it got into the mystery of the missing violin and its ultimate recovery.

Knowledgable classical music lovers will enjoy the music references and their ability to recognize the pieces mentioned will enhance the story for them.

Gerald Elias is an author to watch and I'd certainly try anaother one of his books. ( )