The Violin Conspiracy

★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

336 pages

What’s it about?

Ray McMillian loves the violin, but as a black boy in North Carolina, he is an oddity. His single mother is not interested in his love of music. She is interested in him getting a paying job, so when his grandma gives him his grandfather's old fiddle, only Ray and his grandma are excited.  When he takes that violin to a high-school competition, a professor will hear him and change his life.  But when the violin is suddenly stolen, a whole new mystery begins.

What did it make me think about?

Music- and how racism seems to pervade even that.

Should I read it?

This was a solid mystery with an interesting backstory. My knowledge of classical music is limited, so reading about this world was an intriguing experience for me.  When I started the book, my first thought was, "I've read this already...", but it turned out I had read a later book, Symphony of Secrets, by the same author, and recognized the writing style and musical theme.  Brendan Slocumb crafts a compelling mystery that offers a glimpse into his life as a Black man in the world of classical music.  I think most mystery readers will enjoy this book.

A passage I marked

"Like many turning points in life- especially in the life of a lonely kid who stuck mostly to himself, playing a beat-up violin that his grandmother had given him- Ray's life changed because someone else reached out across the gulf and touched him."