Cemetery of the Nameless

Steven Greenhalgh is the research librarian in the Department of Public
Health Sciences at the University of Alberta.

While on her latest European tour, violinist Victoria Morgan stops in
Vienna, Austria, where she is given an irrefutable opportunity to play
an unknown and newly discovered violin concerto written by none other
than Ludwig van Beethoven. Leaving behind the tour and the relative
safety of her hotel room, the virtuoso is driven to the home of an
Austrian baron who has offered to allow Victoria to be the first to
perform this recently found work. After only a day’s practice,
Victoria is coaxed into playing the piece to a select group of the
baron’s friends. Refusing the baron’s advances after the
performance, Victoria is drugged into a nearly unconscious state, only
to awaken the following morning with the body of the baron lying next to
hers, his throat cut from ear to ear. With the help of Thekla, a maid in
the baron’s service, Victoria flees the castle, and it is Rocky,
Victoria’s husband, who is then left to uncover the identity of the
true murderer as well as the whereabouts of the now-missing Beethoven
concerto.

Blechta’s insider knowledge of the music community is apparent and
cleverly woven into this murder mystery. The reader is treated to a
vivid description of the sensation Victoria experiences as she performs
the lost violin concerto for the first time while standing before the
baron’s assembled guests. Blechta grabs the reader’s attention from
the beginning and maintains his hold as further acts of murder and
mayhem appear at key intervals moving the plot to its final conclusion.
Equally entertaining is the antagonistic and rather volatile
relationship between husband Rocky and Detective Mьller, a member of
the local Vienna Police who is convinced of Victoria’s guilt and seeks
to advance his own career through her arrest and imprisonment.

Cemetery of the Nameless is a well-written and highly enjoyable
suspense thriller.