The Vivaldi Cipher

The Vivaldi Cipher takes place during the election of a new Pope in mid-18th century Venice. Famed violinist Antonio Vivaldi is a close friend of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni who is expected to be elected as the next Pope. Before Ottoboni is killed during the conclave, Vivaldi learns about a ring of art forgers who are replacing the Vatican's priceless artworks with expertly painted fakes. Feeling desperate, Vivaldi hides a message in a special melody hoping that someone will take down the culprits. There is an alternate plot that takes place in the current era. When a dying mafia don gives his final confession, he informs the priest hearing the confession that there are many forged paintings in the Vatican Museum and that the key to their identities lies hidden in a piece of music. Father Dominic, prefect of the Secret Archives, investigates. He is mystified when he finds a cipher in an old composition from Vivaldi. Wanting to stop this centuries long conspiracy, he calls upon fellow sleuth Hana Sinclair and Dr. Livia Gallo, a music cryptologist, to help him crack the code and learn which paintings are fake. However, the Camorra, an Italian mafia clan, refuse to allow Father Dominic to interfere with their lucrative operation.

While this is an engaging story I could not help but think that the secret concerning the art thefts was divulged to too many people. By the time Hana and Dr. Gallo consult with other art experts as well as those providing security for them, 10 people know what the secret is. They, of course, tell more people and this deathbed secret is no longer much of a secret. Everyone in Venice who counts knows and so do several folks at the Vatican, putting them all in danger. 

That said, the story was engrossing. I couldn't put the book down and spent an entire day reading it. As an art lover, the descriptions of the artist studios interested me. Of course, it should go without saying that the Venetian setting was delicious. Reading about the boats gliding through the Grand Canal reminded me of my own gondola rides in Venice several years ago. The mask shop described in the novel sounds like one I actually visited so the book sent me on a huge trip down memory lane. 

It was quite creative for the author to hide clues to the art thefts in a musical score. The score needed a cipher so that someone could discover the clues. Esteemed musician Antonio Vivaldi created the cipher in the story as well as the score. The type of music was also another clue so there were many twists and turns in this mystery.

One of the characters, Dr. Gallo, is a music cryptologist which I had never heard of before. It is an actual profession though. The cipher is created by assigning a letter to each note in a score. A secret message can be found by decoding each word and then each sentence. Music cryptology has been written into the novels of other authors as well as in to a TV program. It is a new concept for me though. I found out from Wikipedia that it was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.

While advertised as a historical mystery, approximately 60% of the story takes place in the current time period.  I thought that it was a great book and both historical fiction and mystery fans will like it as well. 4 out of 5 stars.

.Self

.Self (pronounced dot self) is one of the newest Comixology Originals limited series comics. It is a science fiction story that imagines what would happen if a piece of technology made a bootleg copy of your entire life and then showed up on your doorstep. Further imagine what would happen if someone hacked into that technology and made additional copies of you and sent them out into the world to pursue different life paths that you did not take.  This is what you get with .Self.

The story begins with Natalie Winters living a comfortable life in Seattle with her husband and a robot vacuum that she treats like a pet. Because her husband is a techie, Natalie has an account with Postscript, a service designed to allow people a sense of closure after death. Postscript gives people an opportunity to preserve themselves for one last visit with loved ones and works easily. All you have to do is swallow a capsule and Postscript begins logging your social media presence, your memories and everything else and saves it in a blank body. Upon your death, Postscript will give you 48 hours of an extra life to sort things out with your family and friends.  Our heroine Natalie discovers that her Postscript account has been hacked and is confronted by several blank bodies who think that they are her. In an effort to destroy Postscript Natalie smashes the device but she soon realizes that she has to find the uninstall pill to stop it.

The premise for this plot is phenomenal. Who would have ever thought about backing up your self onto a hard drive? Cartoonist Christopher Sebela! The Natalie character is a tough woman who can physically fight anyone. However, she is overwhelmed and angry from the angles that her blank bodies have taken. She soon receives many emails from friends and relatives asking her to explain herself but Natalie does not know what they are talking about. Her husband Simon is too busy with his medical practice to help her. He is really a secondary character in the story with Natalie and her additional bodies taking center stage.

.Self will be a 5 issue comic.  I have read the first and second issues, which were published in November and December 2021 respectively. I suppose that issue 3 will come out this month but I have not heard anything about it. In an interview between the author and syfy.com Sebela stated that the story will continue with Natalie's Postscript account being further hacked and the bodies of several different Blanks being uploaded to it, causing her more confusion. 

5 out of 5 stars.

Royal Heir

Royal Heir is the 3rd installment of the Jagiellon Dynasty Series by P. K. Adams.  It takes place in Poland and Lithuania beginning in 1563.  The series began as a historical novel about Queen Bona. Bona has already passed away when this story began and it did not seem fulfilling or interesting to me. The plot concerns the son of Bona's best friend. 

The publisher's summary:  

At twenty-eight, Julian Konarski runs the family estate outside of Krakow, and he finds the job boring. Leaving the day to day work to his steward, he spends his free time reading Machiavelli, debating philosophy with friends at the university, or drinking at taverns at night. It is while on his way back from one such revel that Julian witnesses a brutal attack on a young nobleman in a dark alley in Krakow's ill-repute district. When the attackers flee, Julian rushes to aid the victim, but the unfortunate man dies in his arms. But before the last breath escapes the nobleman's body, he entrusts Julian with a mysterious message. Filled with sympathy, Julian promises to fulfill the dying man's wish and find its intended recipient.

When the judge presiding over the inquest dismisses the death as a result of a drunken brawl, Julian decides to conduct his own investigation. Aided by his cousin Rozalia and an impoverished noblewoman Magda, he soon discovers a connection between the murdered man and the household of Princess Anna, heir presumptive to King Zygmunt August. The search for justice becomes a desperate race to stop the throne from being usurped - but by whom? And will Julian avoid the deadly trap his elusive opponent is determined to set for him? 

I am sad to say that I did not like this installment of the series. It was dull. If you have not read the earlier books in the series, you will have no idea who the characters are. The main character, Julian, is not specifically named until page 57. Every paragraph begins with the word "I" and even though I had read the prior books I was not sure who "I" was. I kind of thought that he was the son of Queen Bona's female assistant but after a year passed from the time the last book came out, I was not sure. The author wrote alot of inner dialogue.  Each page we hear about Julian's thoughts, what he wanted to do on a given day, what he wanted to eat, etc... Even the crime to be solved was not known until around page 83 and I could not tell if this murder was the one that the plot would concern. All our information about it comes from Julian's thoughts.  

The series started out well with books one and two.  If there are subsequent books in the series I hope that the author will go back to the writing formula that has worked for her in the past. This is her fifth novel but only the first bump. I can't see that any action in this story will advance the series for future novels so let's hope she gets her groove back.

Memoria

Memoria is a new horror-noir e-comic from Comixology Originals. It follows an aged and terminally ill detective, Tom Reynolds, and a young cop who drinks too much, Frank Daniels.  The two are partners assigned with solving an unsolvable crime. Photos are found of women who are bound, gagged and dead. Our duo is not even sure if the photos are legitimate. No DNA or fingerprints are on the photos. They decide to visit the last known residence of a hometown criminal, Samuel Crawford, to ask questions. However, his mother reminds them that she reported her son missing several years ago and that the police did nothing to try and find him. Soon the duo begin to unravel a conspiracy that points to the existence of a prolific serial killer. News reporter Maria Server is chasing down her own leads on the case and begins to believe that information has been buried by the police department. She acts as a third detective for the story.  

Noir is not a genre I enjoy. However, Memoria had a good plot which moved fast. There were several twists and turns during the investigation and it felt like a mainstream mystery story to me. The porno movie ring run by the town's wealthiest family was believable. As the duo continued to uncover more missing girls, as well as missing known crooks, they have a meeting with their boss. During the meeting they are surprised that the porn angle cannot be followed because there is no link to the killings. Well, they felt that there was but the police chief seemed to be covering up the activities of the town's most powerful men.  There is much more to this story.

Memoria was a fun read.  I am rating it 4 out of 5 stars.

The Girl in the Ground

The Girl in the Ground is the 4th Nikki Hunt Mystery and I couldn't read it fast enough.  It is an edge of your seat crime thriller that captured my full attention in the first pages. Nikki is an FBI special agent working in her home town of Stillwater, Minnesota. The story opens with construction workers unearthing the skeleton of a girl in Stillwater. Nikki's boyfriend Rory Todd is working at the site and calls her when the bones are found. While Nikki knows instantly that the girl was murdered, she is shocked when Rory tells her that he knows who the girl is. The dead girl is his childhood girlfriend Becky, and he was the last person to see her alive before she went missing twenty four years earlier.  Rory, of course, becomes a suspect and Nikki is told to step away from the investigation. Soon it becomes clear that Becky was pregnant and that Rory was the father of her baby. However, Nikki still believes that he is innocent and investigates that case anyway. When Nikki finds a potential link to two pregnant girls who were found murdered years before, she believes that she may solved the mystery of all of the murdered girls.

The character Rory seemed somewhat different from his appearance in earlier novels in the series. He is incredibly untrusting of the police despite that fact that his girlfriend is one of them. While it is normal to fear law enforcement when you are a suspect in a murder, he even began lying to Nikki over mundane matters. I think if I was a suspect, I would take some comfort from knowing that my girlfriend could help me. Rory acts differently.  

 

The mystery concerning the pregnant girls being murdered was well thought out. The main missing woman is a surrogate for a wealthy couple who are unable to have kids. When she disappears they think that something sinister must have happened to her because she was not the type of person who would just disappear. Nikki is a close friend of the couple and decides to help them out and look for the girl. Her main investigation, though, is to figure out how Becky died and why. Nikki believes that the missing surrogate is connected to all of the other missing girls as all of them were pregnant. She has alot of cases to look into in order to solve the crimes.  

This latest installment of the series was a fun read. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Girl in the Painting

At 495 pages, this epic story of India more than meets the requirements for the Chunkster Challenge. Four alternating plots are gathered together in this captivating story. One plot takes place in 1913 where our heroine Margaret is growing up in Charleston, England. During the same time, Archana is growing up in India. In 1926, Margaret has fallen in love with her new husband Suraj and his native country, India. Having moved from England to India after Suraj obtained his law degree, the couple moved to his parent's home after their sudden deaths. In 2000, Emma McEwen plans to divorce her husband and seeks solace from her grandmother Margaret, now back in England.  

The publisher's summary:

India, 1926:  Margaret is in love, with her new husband and her new home, a sprawling villa amidst beautiful rolling hills, the air filled with the soft scent of spices and hibiscus flowers. Yet, she's unwelcome with the locals and grows close to Archana, her maid, who reminds Margaret of the beloved sister she lost in the great war.  

Overjoyed with her pregnancy, Margaret could stay forever, sipping tea, chatting with Archana, painting in the sun beside the stream full of water lilies. But when Archana finds herself in danger and Margaret makes the choice to save her, she doesn't realize the devastating consequences that will tear her and Archana apart, destroy her marriage, and haunt her for the rest of her life.

England, 2000:  Emma's relationship is falling apart, and her beloved grandmother, Margaret, is dying.  Margaret has one last request:  find Archana.  It's the first time Emma has even heard the name, but desperate for an escape and to bring Margaret closure, she travels deep into the heart of the Indian hills, to a crumbling house overgrown with vines, searching for answers.  

The more Emma learns, the more she sees of herself in her grandmother, and the stronger her need to uncover Margaret's secret.  But if she finds Archana and the truth is finally revealed - the story of a day spent painting by the stream, and a betrayal that tore three lives to pieces - can it help each woman find peace or are some rifts too deep to heal?

For the first time, an English town sounds appealing to me. Charleston, where Margaret met with fellow artists, was a place that intellectuals and artists of every persuasion met to discuss the arts. It was enlightening for Margaret. The cacophony of Bombay even feels appealing to me even though I don't like alot of noise. It seems charming though. I can smell the food being sold in the market places. Margaret, however, must have a few allergies because she initially cannot handle the smells and always has a coughing fit. It amazes me that writers can make a place that I don't think I would like seem so romantic. India has always captured my imagination even though I have my own allergies to outdoor fragrances and cannot stand noise. These are great writers who can accomplish this.

The Emma character did not do much for me but Margaret and Archana were interesting characters. I cannot pick which one I like the most. Both had awful upbringings but Archana was poor because she married an untouchable so she suffered much more both emotionally and physically. Her culture was harsher toward women who did not fit into the expected mold. I felt bad that society demanded that she keep her feelings bottled up but Margaret had a choice. She chose to mess up her marriage and I am not sure what in her background made her do so. Did she just not have decent enough life skills?  Suraj was a dream boat. However, he was a secondary character. The book is really about Margaret and Archana.

All in all, The Girl in the Painting was a captivating story. I highly recommend it to historical fiction fans.  5 out of 5 stars.

River of Sin

River of Sin is TKO Short Limited Edition #7.  Written and drawn by Kelly Williams, it was published in September 2021. The story opens with children being found dead and mutilated in the woods. Alfonso fears that this might be the fate of his daughter Elizabeth. Feeling desperate, he and the parents of the other missing children decide to take matters into their own hands. They suspect that the kidnapper is Marge, one of the Brujas who steal kids, kill them and cook them, then bathe in their blood and fat. They are known to be able to squeeze into a home through small cracks and lie in wait until kids fall asleep. The group plans on confronting Marge to get answers and possibly find their kids. Along the way they meet the local sheriff who is looking into a report of blood on a trail in the woods. When they arrive at Marge's cabin they get a surprise. Sorry, no spoilers here.

This comic was a little macabre for me. I could not get over the artwork on the first page which showed an owl with blood spilling from its mouth. The owl was just too gory and affected how I experienced the comic. It made a grim story appear more gruesome than it was.  I have alot of questions about the storyline and looked for reviews of the comic. I did not find any reviews at all and will need to wait for reviews to be posted to fully figure this one out.

Since I do not typically read this type of comic I don't know what I should expect from it. Consequently, I cannot give a rating for it.