Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Iron Tongue of Midnight by Beverle Graves Myers - Available

The Iron Tongue of Midnight

#4 in series

by Beverle Graves Myers
Geoffrey Blaisdell
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

In September 1740, singer Tito Amato is offered the lead role in an opera being staged at an isolated villa in the Italian hills. Puzzled by the air of secrecy that enshrouds the production but attracted by a generous fee, Tito agrees.

The countryside is awash with the golden hues of autumn, but the bucolic mood quickly turns menacing when a notorious figure from Tito’s past turns up at the villa. That night, at the stroke of twelve, a soprano stumbles over a stranger who has been beaten to death with the clock pendulum.

With the local constable away on a boar hunt, the midnight murderer strikes with impunity, raising terror to a fevered crescendo. Tito must pursue his own quest for answers, a quest that leads straight into the painful secrets of his heart and beyond.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Tito Amato

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 15, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481582896
      • File size: 288706 KB
      • Duration: 10:01:28

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In the fourth Tito Amato mystery, castrato Tito and his artist brother-in-law, Gussie, are invited to the Dolfinos' country villa--Tito to star in a new opera and Gussie to do paintings of their vineyards. An unidentified man is found murdered in a hallway, the leading lady in the troupe of musicians turns out to be Tito's long-lost sister, more murders occur, and timely explanatory letters from Tito's brother in Constantinople deepen the puzzle. Descriptions of the customs and the countryside of eighteenth-century Italy are colorful, thanks to Geoffrey Blaisdell's capable reading. Blaisdell's first-person narration as Tito is appealing, and his other characterizations are nicely understated. The plotting is swift, if predictable, but listeners won't mind the contrivances since it's all a lot of fun. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 14, 2008
      In Myers's agreeable fourth mystery to feature 18th-century Venetian castrato Tito Amato (after 2006's Cruel Music
      ), Tito has barely settled in at a country villa, where he's participating in a private performance commissioned by a wealthy opera lover, when a stranger is found murdered in the villa's hallway. To his further astonishment, one of the singers gathered there, under a false identity, is his sister, Grisella, who left the family years before and for whom his brother, Alessandro, is just then searching in Constantinople. Tito attempts to solve the murder and uncover his sister's real story amid musical rehearsals, regular epistles from Alessandro and more deaths. The book's diction and attitudes have a contemporary rather than a historical ring, and Alessandro's unrealistically prompt and well-dramatized letters are an obvious fictional contrivance. Still, Tito proves himself a lively narrator, and fans of cozier period puzzles and Italian opera will enjoy his company as well as the book's appealingly bucolic, autumnal setting.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading
Check out what's being checked out right now