Mariel Baxter, a famous American soprano, has suddenly cancelled all her recitals and flown to Vienna. In the 1980s she came to the city to study the art of lieder singing with the reclusive Ursule Kroll, one of the brightest stars of the Nazi era and a favourite of the Führer himself. The two haven't communicated since Mariel's unexpected departure over twenty-five years ago. So why has Mariel come back? As Ursule and Mariel play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, terrible revelations about the past begin to unfold, and both women soon discover that some secrets are better left buried. Scotland's finest contemporary writer.' Alexander McCall Smith '(Ronald Frame's) novel strikes with flair and reasonance those dissonant chords of money and desire,fame and politi, that rumble behind great music and its makers.Its various mysteries unfold at a presto gallop, free of all Viennese schmaltz, in a tight-knit, allusive and sardonic style: more Alban Berg than Richard Strauss.' Boyd Tonkin The Independent '...Frame is particularly adept at depicting the interplay between music, love and desire-both lesbian and hetrosexual- and the price that all practitioners have to pay to perfect their art.' Michael Ardetti The Financial Times
