'Cloudy With a Chance of Murder' Review

By Stephen DanknerSpecial to iBerkshires
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Steve Dankner, a guest classical music writer, whose preview coverage of the summer music festival season at Tanglewood and at other regional performance venues will begin in June, has sent in a musical murder-mystery book review that should be of interest to music lovers.
 
Gerald Elias, the brilliantly gifted violinist and mystery writer, who hails from Salt Lake City, has published the latest – the seventh - in his series of musical whodunits, "Cloudy With a Chance of Murder."
 
A fast-paced page-turner, the action takes place on a rustic, isolated island in the Great Salt Lake – the summer home of the Antelope Island Music Festival – where devoted listeners congregate each summer to hear world-class musical virtuosi perform great classical chamber music.
 
Only this summer, sub rosa jealousies and sworn vendettas are also on the program…along with Bach and Mendelssohn.
 
Author Elias, a Tanglewood violinist, artfully and with meticulous detail taps into his insider knowledge of summer music festival lore to set the scene for the action: how an innocent, but ‘politically incorrect' remark among musical friends and colleagues snowballs into a devastating – and deadly – chain of events. Lives and careers are in the balance, and how, due to a freak, catastrophic summer hailstorm, there's no escape for the musicians and festivalgoers to exit the devastated festival grounds. The deranged murderer, too, is stranded, and given the opportunity, he'll attempt to kill again; no one is safe!
 
Only Elias could paint such a picture with classical music as its backdrop. The prescient, all-knowing yet blind violinist/mentor/detective hero, Daniel Jacobus joins with and enables his young protégé, the brilliant violinist
virtuoso Yumi Shinegawa in uncovering the tale's twists and turns, taking the reader on an exhilarating musical ride: an Allegro con brio to the end, where all the pieces of this intricate musical puzzle come together, culminating in a final, climactic presto delirioso. Most highly recommended.

Tags: books,   classical music,   mystery,   

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Ghost Tour at Ventfort Hall

LENOX, Mass. — Join Robert Oakes, author of "Ghosts of the Berkshires," who will lead participants through the rooms and halls of Ventfort Hall sharing tales of its alleged hauntings.
 
The tour will take place at 8 pm on Saturday March 16.
 
Admission is $30 and minimum age to attend is age 12. Reservations are strongly recommended as tickets are limited. Walk-ins accommodated as space allows. For reservations visit https://gildedage.org/pages/calendar or call at 413-637-3206. All tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable. Payment is required to make a reservation for an event.
 
This is not an active investigation.
 
Robert Oakes is an author, teacher, storyteller, and singer/songwriter originally from northern New Jersey and currently residing in the Berkshires.. Since 2010 Robert has led the ghost tours at Edith Wharton's The Mount in Lenox, and has represented the museum and its ghosts on Syfy's Ghost Hunters, Jeff Belanger's New England Legends series on PBS, and The Apple Seed show on BYUradio. 
 
In 2020, Robert's debut book, "Ghosts of the Berkshires," was published by Arcadia Publishing and is on sale now in our gift shop. Robert's latest book, "Ghosts of Northwestern New Jersey," was released in September 2022.
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