Four years ago, the Italian Lodovico Malvezzi was murdered and Orfeo, the young English tenor he had been training for a career on the glittering operatic stage, disappeared. Kestrel, traveling on the Continent with his ex-pickpocket valet, is irresistibly drawn into the baffling case. He encounters suspects at every turn: a runaway wife and her male soprano lover; a liberal nobleman at odds with Italy’s Austrian overlords; a mocking Frenchman with perfect pitch; a beautiful, clever widow who haunts Kestrel’s dreams; and the missing Orfeo, the penniless protégé who just might be a political agent. And when the killer strikes again, Kestrel’s quest for answers spirals into a crescendo of passion, danger, and music as he risks becoming a ruthless murderer’s next victim. (from the back cover)

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