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DEATH AND THE MAIDEN is the sixth novel in a series called the LIEBERMANN PAPERS. They feature a young psychoanalyst – Liebermann – and his more conventional detective friend, Oskar Rheinhardt. The books are all set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century – to be precise, in 1903. It was a place that clearly fires Tallis's imagination. He likes to describe the indulgent lives that many people were able to lead, full of delicious cake (and other food) and coffee. He loves the grand buildings. As a practising analyst himself, he is clearly fascinated by the work that Sigmund Freud was undertaking in Vienna at the same time, and the struggles that practitioners in the fledgling analytical disciplines had in overcoming the then conventional treatments of the day. As well as the comforts and intellectual stimulation found there, Tallis explores the darker sides of Viennese life – corruption at the heart of government for example, and the outbreaks of rabid anti-Semitism which we now understand was to become a key factor in the subsequent development of European history. On top of all this, Tallis is also clearly passionate about music. In this novel the focus is not – as one might have anticipated from the title – on Schubert, but on Gustav Mahler, then director of the Vienna Opera, and a man with the temerity to demand that members of his orchestra actually play the notes written for them. This not only fails to endear him to the members of the orchestra, but also to the bureaucrats (who pay the bills) and the press. There is also a sub-plot involving the possibly hidden messages left in the compositions of a little known 19th century composer – something that other more famous composers including Bach also got up to. This is the rich context in which the investigation – by Liebermann and Rheinhardt - of the violent murder of Ida Rosenkrantz, one of the most talented opera singers of her generation, unfolds. This context is important because the murder and its investigation seem at times almost incidental to the other matters that Tallis wants to write about. For example, Liebermann's psychoanalytical insights are as significant in helping Mahler defuse a potentially very damaging situation at the Opera House as in understanding the motivations of the murderer – essential to solving the mystery. Having finished the book, I was left wondering how DEATH AND THE MAIDEN might be best classified. To be sure there is a murder which needs investigation and a murderer to be unmasked. Nevertheless, I concluded that this novel was not a 'crime thriller' – as the book's marketing might suggest. I felt that the specific 'whodunit?' plot line was being used by Tallis as a vehicle for him to share his insights and passions about politics, music and psychoanalysis with his readers. For me it worked better as a work of historical fiction than as a conventional detective story. § Martin Partington is a retired Law Professor, barrister and law reformer. His passions are music and reading. He leads a split existence, partly in England, partly in the South of France.
Reviewed by Martin Partington, June 2011
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