Here’s an intriguing opener for you: “Piper Morgan kicked off her stilettos and ran down the backstage ramp toward the staircase. A soprano died on those stairs tonight. But who? The alto who found the body could not give a name. But soon the “who” is known, not the why, and the apparent accident turns into a murder case, though it’s not clear if the dead woman was the intended victim.
This was performance night- Handel’s Messiah -when many of the women in the New York Luminoso, a well regarded volunteers chorus, had similar hairdos and dress. And so Angel’s Blood: Murder in the Chorus by Roberta Mantell begins, a debut novel by a journalist who’s been singing with New York’s Oratorio Society and Cecilia Chorus for years.
Mantell has a deep love and knowledge of choral music and a passion to promote neglected or ignored female composers; to set right what the book’s epigraph declares in the words of the late 19th century American journalist and music critic George P. Upton: “It does not seem that woman will ever originate music in its fullest and grandest harmonic forms. She will always be the recipient and interpreter, but there is little hope she will be the creator.” No way for the two women protagonists in Angels Blood. No way they’re are buying that. Piper Morgan, as arts reporter testing her newbie chops, and Nicole Jennings-Barlow, the sarcastic, forbidding wife of Luminoso conductor Todd Barlow, are eager to see the group perform a newly discovered Requiem said to be by a 19th century woman composer.
But wait. Did that woman, Lisha Lovington really compose the 1899 Requiem? It turns out that the conductor’s wife recently discovered something strange: two identical manuscripts of the Requiem. With different signatures. One is by Lovington, but the other, indisputably in his hand is by the famous English composer, Sir Edward Elgar. Think Pomp and Circumstance marches, the Enigma Variations, the violin and Cello Concertos.
Are these mysteries related -- the death of the beautiful soprano, whose “heavenly” voice was like an angel’s, and who was having a torrid affair with the conductor, and the mystery of the duplicate manuscripts? In fact, the plot gets more complicated when the body of a bass turns up – an ex-boyfriend of the murdered soprano, who, it turns out, slept around a lot.
A British musicologist is insistent that his great-great-grand aunt Lisha Lovington is the composer. A lot is on the line: money, reputation, careers.
In an Afterword, Mantell writes that the idea of Angel’s Blood came to her during an intermission of a performance of Messiah in which she was singing tenor. “Music moves us in unexpected ways,” she says. And so does Angels’ Blood.
Mantell delivers an engaging murder mystery tucked into a fictional tale about an unsung – pun intended- 19th century English housewife and mother who wrote music. The book’s chapters alternate between the present and the past by way of letters Lisha writes to her sister about her correspondence with Elgar.
As if all this mystery were not enough, Mantell also addresses sexual promiscuity, female friendship, the rules of police investigations and journalism ethics. For those who sing, Angels Blood is a hoot; for those who don’t, the book may inspire them to join a chorus; and for those who like Mantell’s take on murder, for sure eager-beaver arts columnist, now crime reporter Piper Morgan will be back.
