From Publishers Weekly
The cat has escaped the bag on the Web and elsewhere: Wendell McCall is none other than thriller writer Ridley Pearson. But if only this semi-hardboiled, semi-academic mysteryAthe first McCall title in almost 10 yearsAwas as good as the average Pearson blockbuster. As in the previous McCalls, Chris Klick is a partner in a business that finds missing royalties for musicians; sometimes Chris must hunt for the musicians in order to give them the money. This time, it is surprisingly difficult for him to give away the money, for it belongs to a famous conductor, Stephan Shultz, who has emptied his wife's bank accounts and taken off with a teenage girl to Europe. Chris tracks Shultz from Paris to London to Oxford to try to persuade him that an offer of royalty money is not simply a cover to confiscate his wife's missing cash. A friend arranges for Chris to masquerade as the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellow in residence at Wadham College, Oxford (a fellowship once held by Pearson). Chris falls in love with Oxford, and much of the novel is spent in lyricizing about its joys. But this is territory that has been better covered by such writers as Dorothy L. Sayers and Edmund Crispin. Chris's perspective as a visiting American is an interesting one, but McCall shows little adeptness for British colloquialisms in his dialogue, and there's no real sense of verisimilitude. Pearson's acclaimed talent for sustaining suspense isn't apparent, either. Although it's clear that the author loved his stay in Oxford, and was bemused by the eccentricity of the dons and other university denizens, his affection for matters Oxbridgian doesn't compensate for a weak plot. (June) FYI: Later this year, Poisoned Pen will reprint in trade paperback the two earlier Wendell McCall mysteries, Dead Aim in July and Aim for the Heart in October. Meanwhile, a new Ridley Pearson novel, The First Victim (Forecasts, May 17), is due out from Hyperion in July.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"After going missing from the mystery, writing business for almost l0 years, Wendell McCall returns with his unusual, music-loving "detective" Chris Klick, the quirky character who made his first appearances in Dead Aim (1988) and Aim for the Heart (1990).
Concerto was researched and written while McCall was the visiting Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Research Fellow at Wadham College in Oxford. What exactly does one research at Oxford for the purposes of writing a mystery? Why, Oxford itself of course! McCall even manages to get his hero appointed (under false pretenses) as the Chandler/Fulbright Fellow himself in the course of this careening and impulsive mystery.
Chris Klick, a former musician, now restores uncollected royalties (for a percentage) to elusive and eccentric musicians who may or may not want to be found -- in this case, a world famous symphony conductor and spendthrift playboy who has just absconded with his wealthy wife's money and run off with a young and very beautiful first cellist. The gifted cellist is to report to Oxford to "read the term at Christ Church," and Klick and his one-of-a-kind sidekick Lyel (an erudite and seven-feet-tall former NBA center forward) figure the conductor will be close behind her. Lyel (the very wealthy ex-basketball player is also a well-connected Oxford graduate) manages to arrange Klick's Chandler fellowship appointment in exchange for a promise that Klick will also look into the unrelated (sure) matter of a missing don.Klick's attention is eventually recaptured and he discovers that in the cloistered environment of the Oxford dons, one-upsmanship, elaborate practical jokes and grudges that last decades can escalate into diabolical criminal conspiracies of the most extraordinary dimension. And all the while, the protagonists and antagonists meet every night at High Table, in their respectably worn black robes, to dine sumptuously together, exchange clever yet nearly opaque verbal jousts and jibes, and drink themselves into a stupor with each night's spectacularly expensive selection of rare wine. Now that's research. -- Richard Diffenderfer, Firsts Magazine, July/August 1999 Issue"
