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Product Description
International cellist Sara Selkirk is apprehensive about the charity concert in Bath's famous Pump Room. It's the first time she will have performed in public since the death of her lover the previous year. But, in the event, Sara's performance is overshadowed by the death of the concert's organiser, Matthew Sawyer. In the ensuing police investigation, many secrets are uncovered including a stolen needlework collection, an immigration racket, a headmaster's adulterous affair with his secretary. What, if anything, do any of them have to do with Sawyer's death?
About the Author
Morag Joss left her native Scotland to study singing at the Guildhall School of Music. Since then, she has worked in museums, galleries and higher education as a manager and lecturer and, most recently, as an adviser to arts education to the National Trust. She now writes full time. FUNERAL MUSIC is her first novel.
From the Inside Flap
To the ancient Romans, the healing waters of Bath belonged to the goddess Minerva. Today they belong to the gods of commerce, as tourists teem, shops prosper, and the incense of gourmet food rises to the English skies. Among the throng is Sara Selkirk, a world-class cellist who came undone in a Paris performance. For Sara, taking a break from performing has given her a chance to look at what's missing from her life- and even at a case of murder....
The killing occurred in the famous Roman Baths, and the victim was the museum's director. Knowing several people close to the investigation-from a potential suspect to a detective who cajoled her into giving him cello lessons-Sara discovers a talent for making sense of things. But like a Bach fugue, the pattern she grasps is more complex than it seems. And as she moves down a trail strewn with secrets and damaged lives, a chilling story begins to emerge: of greed, envy-and a killer performance that may not be quite finished yet.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. At the start of this exquisite crime novel from British author Joss (
Fruitful Bodies), renowned cellist Sara Selkirk'who has barely performed in public since a breakdown following her lover's death'gives a charity performance at Bath's historic Pump Room. The evening goes well, but when she returns to claim a forgotten belt the morning after, she discovers Matthew Sawyer, the contentious 'Director of Museums and Civic Leisure Resources,' lying dead in the ancient spring that waters the legendary Roman baths. Spurred by the details reluctantly divulged by her student, DCI Andrew Poole, Sara tries to puzzle out Sawyer's murder. She knows a number of the potential suspects, who include James, her charming accompanist; Olivia, the victim's assistant director; and a virile but somewhat mysterious young chef named Paul, who, like Andrew, is attracted by Sara's beauty. Many motives lead to little hard evidence until another body surfaces and Sara finds herself suddenly clear about not just the mystery but her own future. If rich, gorgeous Sara sometimes seems too perfect to be true, the book's supporting cast is nicely fleshed out with human idiosyncrasies and tangled cross-purposes. Even better are Joss's lyrical evocations of Bath, which becomes the book's most compelling character.
Agent, Jean Naggar. (Apr.)
Copyright -¬ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Excerpt. -¬ Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Part OneChapter One

Sara was breathing hard, partly from exertion but also with annoyance. It was not that the telephone was interrupting anything except that first, quiet moment when all movement stopped. It was more that she very much wanted it not to be her age