The Lost Concerto

The Lost Concerto, written by Helanie Mario is a fast moving suspense novel.  You have to pay close attention to follow the political and espionage aspects of the story.  The plot moves along at a slow musical andante pace as the storyline unfolds, the danger builds and the romance develops.   Your pulse will quicken as the good guys fight the bad guys in a darkened church cloister.  The character development is well done and the reader definitely finds himself entrenched in the plot hoping that certain characters to win and overcome the dark forces of evil.

A beautiful woman is killed as her son escapes and the question is left in the air, where is the important diary naming names and the lost manuscript of a never before heard Concerto by Beethoven?  This is the beginning of an international spy thriller that keeps the reader trying to figure out as the intrigue is being uncovered.  Reading along to keep track of who the good players are and who is lying to whom.  Traveling between the United States and France to follow the killer and the search for the information that can reveal all.  There are beautiful descriptions of the France both the countryside and the the city of Paris.  There are also wonderful descriptions of music.

We meet Maggie O'Shea, a concert pianist who owns a music store, mother of Brian, who is also a consummate musician about to have his first child with his young wife.  Sofia, Maggie's best friend has been murdered, believed by the hand of her husband, Victor Orsini and their young son has disappeared.  Maggie's husband, Johnny has also died in a boating accident and she is having trouble getting on with her life.  The players now start to get more complicated as CIA agent
Simon Sugarman enters the picture along with retired Afghanistan army veteran, Colonel Michael Jefferson Beckett is assigned to keep Maggie safe.  There are a few more characters that run throughout the story and the plot picks up the pace as a deadline for finding and stopping a potential bombing comes closer.  It is a story of love and loss and vengeance and courage.

This story touches on the idea that Hitler and the Nazis were confiscating the artwork of Jewish artists and collectors.  But this is not really a book about that time period or the search and recovery of those artifacts.  This is a modern day suspense novel filled with political intrigue that brings in the CIA and even the Yale University club, Skull and Bones.  This is a novel pulled from the pages of leading newspapers.   It is also based on the experiences of United States servicemen, for their remarkable patriotism, bravery, strength and sacrifice, who the author says, in her acknowledgments, the characters, "....Colonel Beckett and Zachary Law could not have 'come to life' without their stories and inspiration."