Patience rewarded.

I was drawn to Ariana Franklin's second novel, City of Shadows, mostly due to its setting. The image I have of 1920s Berlin is mostly a combination of decadent nightclubs a la Cabaret and sleek modernist designs from the Bauhaus. But the Berlin of Franklin's novel has a definite dark underbelly, populated by characters desperate to survive in a city that cannot feed its own, in spite of the glittering clubs. Esther Solomonova sees both sides of the city, working for a flamboyant club owner while still recovering from the nightmares of the Russian pograms that left her scarred both physically and emotionally. When her boss, Prince Nick, latches onto a mysterious woman in a local insane hospital who claims to the be the last of the Russian royal family, Esther is given the task of molding her into a believable princess. But with the arrival of Anna Anderson/Anastasia Romanov, Esther finds that the ghosts of her past are not far behind.

Neither, apparently, are the ghosts of Anna's past--and soon more are added. First, the club matron is brutally murdered, then a cabaret showgirl. Esther suspects that anyone with connections to Anna is in the killer's sights, but it is not until Inspector Schmidt of the Berlin police takes the case that Esther's theory is investigated. But as Berlin throws itself into the rising power of National Socialism, the prestige of claiming Grand Duchess Anastasia is a powerful political coup--and at odds with Schmidt and Esther's search for justice.

City of Shadows is a little different from most other suspense novels, in that it took quite a while for the story to really get underway. Franklin uses much of the first portion of the book to create a lush portrait of Berlin and the characters that inhabit it, making the going a little slow at first. But the care Franklin pays in setting the stage pays off in the second half of the book, where the mystery and suspense really start to shift into gear. The depth of characters give that suspense much more of a bite, as I was much more invested in the characters, really caring about the injustices paid to them, and struggling to understand how some could turn to the hateful message of the Nazis.

Anna Anderson was a real person, and many of the events in the book actually happened as Franklin recounts them. But it is as much the nuanced portrait of a city on a brink that gives City of Shadows an authenticity that I sometimes find is missing from many mystery novels. It took a little while to warm up, but I'm glad I stuck with the book as I found myself getting drawn into it more and more. By the end, I was reading at a breakneck pace, hoping it wouldn't end.

The beautiful voice in print.

If you were to ask people in the know about the goings on of the opera world, they would probably agree that Renee Fleming is the closest artist that could be called current American diva. Especially after the release of her most current disc, Homage: The Age of the Diva, it would appear that Fleming herself isn't adverse to the title. So it perhaps shouldn't come as a surprise that Fleming has released (in 2004) The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer: a memoir, not of her life, but of her voice.

It's an interesting concept, but one that has some inherent problems. For instance, where does the voice end and the singer begin? How does such a book different from a singing how-to (or even an extended voice coaching session)? Opera singers sometimes like to refer to their voices as 'instruments,' a concept that almost makes the singer and the voice two distinct entities. Fleming herself has noted that she doesn't like to think of her voice in that manner, but there is the sense from Inner Voice that we're getting a lot on the voice and not so much on Fleming herself. Much of the book reads like the responses to a very friendly interviewer, leaving the singer herself somewhat distant. There's a little bit of confusion over to whom the book is being addressed as well. Fleming offers considerable advice and examples of how she produces her sound and how to avoid the fatigue and vocal damage that often plagues classical singers. Puzzlingly, some simple musical terms, such as legato, are defined in the text, suggesting an audience with little formal training. Yet more difficult concepts ('tessitura') receive no explanation.

On the positive side, Fleming writes with a down-to-earth sensibility that immediately dispells any notion of the stereotypical touchy diva. If Inner Voice suffers from some a lack of focus, at least one can say that it is a breeze to read, and the moments where Fleming does get into some personal history offer honest, engaging depictions of the hectic life of an opera star. As such, I'm still glad that I took the time to read it. Die-hard Fleming fans, voice students and opera enthusiasts interested in the 'how it's done' aspects of singing would probably find The Inner Voice most satisfying. Fleming's artistry and career are likely important enough to encourage future books; perhaps she'll write a more traditional memoir in the future. In the meantime, this interview and performance on MPR's Saint Paul Sunday provides a satisfying portrait of the artist.

Frosty's been iced.

I'm a sucker for macabre twists, so it was just a matter of time before I picked up Snow Blind, P. J. Tracy's procedural set in the frigid expanses of rural Minnesota. The twist to this mystery lies in the method by which the killer(s) go about disposing of their victims. In suitable cold weather fashion, they encase their victims in snowmen, complete with carrot noses. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

The story has some fairly formulaic touches: the detectives are cranky veterans who are leary of venturing beyond their Minneapolis haunts and a rookie sheriff finds herself facing down dangerous criminals before she's even figured out how to get to her own headquarters. The pace is typical thriller, moving at a fast pace and zooming between character perspectives. But most of the story is told from the perspective of Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth of the MPD, and their newbie colleague in Dundas County, Iris Rikker. When a snowman appears in the rural northern county, Magozzi and Rolseth find that all clues seem to lead to the Bitterroot Corporation, a front for an abused women's shelter. While trying to unearth the motives behind the murders, Sheriff Rikker makes some unpleasant discoveries that suggest the mysteries behind the snowmen murders has a much longer history than anyone could have imagined. Snow Blind is a fast read (it took me two working days to blow through it), and it's not wanting for plot turns. Astute readers will probably figure out the ending, but Tracy (in reality a pseudonym for a mother-daughter writing team) wisely creates an ending worthy of the topics surrounding the mystery.

I did have one complaint about Snow Blind, however. This is a Monkeewrench novel, named after the computer security firm that Magozzi and Rolseth enlist to hack into websites for clues. I've never read any of the other Monkeewrench titles, which I didn't think would be an issue as the novels all seemed standalone. In retrospect, I probably should have started with the first title which might have given a little more background. Otherwise, I was rather lost on the first few sections in Snow Blind dealing with previously established characters. On the whole, Snow Blind, while mostly sticking to formula does that formula quite well, providing the excitement that whodunits should.