A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen: A Katy Green Mystery

Rating:
Summary: Katy is no ordinary P.I.: she's a swing violinist in 1939
Review: Hal Glatzer's Fugue In Hell's Kitchen provides a new Katy Green mystery. Katy is no ordinary P.I.: she's a swing violinist in 1939 who helps a friend search for a missing classical manuscript - only to find an investigation into petty theft becomes a fight for life. Gripping, especially with the unusual plot and background setting.

Rating:
Summary: I love Katy!
Review: I only wish I were Katy Green! She's the woman I always pictured myself being, but haven't yet become. I love the way she comes at the crime and the criminal---not to punish or exact revenge or retribution but to restore the balance of things. And the author seems to have gotten the period and the location just right---New York's Hell's Kitchen just before World War II. You can almost hear the El and smell the exhaust from the cars. I thought the first Katy Green was terrific ("Too Dead To Swing"). but this one is closer to home.

Rating:
Summary: Delightful historical cozy
Review: In 1939 swing violinist Katy Green is as usual unemployed and walking the pavement (and clubs) for a job. Though she would prefer to say no to her pal cellist Amalia "Am" Lee Chen's request for help, a gig is a gig, but Katy would have preferred a musical job. Instead Am asks Katy to find a priceless Paganini manuscript stolen from her cello case following a performance performed at the prestigious Meyers Conservatory.

Though Katy agrees, she finds the recent death of the conservatory's dean, Iris Meyers a bit more interesting. Katy notices the high note of the tension amidst the faculty reaching discord that along with the disastrous efforts of the deceased's successor, her brother Joseph, threatens the school's existence. .A forgery of the missing composition is returned to Am that leads to the police arresting her for stealing the manuscript. Now the case is personal as Katy follows the musical notes to Harlem trying to find the purloined item even as the conservatory's librarian, know it all, Nina Rovere is killed

Hal Glazer hits all the high notes with this delightful historical cozy that pays homage to various musical styles like swing. Katy is a wonderful lead performer who keeps the tale humming as she digs the scene in an attempt to prove that the arrest of Am is racial due to the imminent war and her friend being of Asiatic descent. Fans of historical who-done-its starring a wonderful amateur sleuth working the mean streets of the Manhattan club scene will sing in harmony with FUGUE IN HELL'S KITCHEN and want to resonate about Katy's previous number, TOO DEAD TO SWING.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Delightful historical cozy
Review: In 1939 swing violinist Katy Green is as usual unemployed and walking the pavement (and clubs) for a job. Though she would prefer to say no to her pal cellist Amalia "Am" Lee Chen's request for help, a gig is a gig, but Katy would have preferred a musical job. Instead Am asks Katy to find a priceless Paganini manuscript stolen from her cello case following a performance performed at the prestigious Meyers Conservatory.

Though Katy agrees, she finds the recent death of the conservatory's dean, Iris Meyers a bit more interesting. Katy notices the high note of the tension amidst the faculty reaching discord that along with the disastrous efforts of the deceased's successor, her brother Joseph, threatens the school's existence. .A forgery of the missing composition is returned to Am that leads to the police arresting her for stealing the manuscript. Now the case is personal as Katy follows the musical notes to Harlem trying to find the purloined item even as the conservatory's librarian, know it all, Nina Rovere is killed

Hal Glazer hits all the high notes with this delightful historical cozy that pays homage to various musical styles like swing. Katy is a wonderful lead performer who keeps the tale humming as she digs the scene in an attempt to prove that the arrest of Am is racial due to the imminent war and her friend being of Asiatic descent. Fans of historical who-done-its starring a wonderful amateur sleuth working the mean streets of the Manhattan club scene will sing in harmony with FUGUE IN HELL'S KITCHEN and want to resonate about Katy's previous number, TOO DEAD TO SWING.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Give'em Hell's Kitchen, Katy!
Review: It's 1939 in Hell's Kitchen, a New York City neighborhood where even plucky heroines, like Hal Glatzer's Katy Green, fear to venture. Gangs rule the streets, and World War II lurks around the corner. As the Great Depression hangs on, musicians, like Katy Green, conservatory and bandstand trained, scramble for any kind of gig they can get. A couple of bodies turn up at a failing music academy, a pal on the faculty is accused of stealing an original Paganini manuscript, and Katy rushes in to settle scores. Her investigation is well paced, and the ending surprises. Glatzer projects as detailed a rendition of the pre-war era as any cinematographer, with authentic language, cuisine, fashion, sexual mores, and race relations, against the ever-changing backdrop of New York. A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen is time travel without the sugarcoated nostalgia. Yet, traditional mystery readers will be glad to know there's little violence or sexual explicitness. A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen should appeal to anyone who likes jazz or classical music. Like Too Dead To Swing, the first in the Katy Green series, an audio version of A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen will soon be produced. The audio of Too Dead To Swing featured fine music and brilliant actors. What fun! I can't wait to hear the audio version of A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen. But definitely read it first.