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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jul 2001, 400 pages
Paperback:
Aug 2002, 400 pages
In the London of 1795, intrigue and death walk the dark streets. England is at war with France and espionage is rampant - and it is the job of John Absey to catch these spies. Intricately plotted and beautifully paced.
In the London of 1795, intrigue and death walk the dark streets. England is at war with its neighbor and nemesis, France, and espionage is rampant. It is the job of Jonathan Absey at the Home Office to catch these spies, but his mind is elsewhere, his dreams haunted by the still unsolved murder of his fifteen-year-old daughter in these same streets. Desperately pursuing both investigations, he stumbles across a strange society of astronomers called the Company of Titius who are on a furious search of their own: to discover a long-lost star in the wide black sky. Soon, as he digs into their arcane world, their quest begins to merge with his own, and Absey finds himself discovering more than he had ever imagined - not only about spies and murderers but also about celestial numbers and the making of codes; about passions as unnatural as they are obsessive; and about the bonds of family...and the lengths we will go to preserve them.
With The Music of the Spheres, Elizabeth Redfern emerges as an evocative and elegant writer of startling power, her gifts for characterization, atmosphere, narrative, and rich moral drama marking her as a new star in her own right.
Chapter 1
Algol is the name of the winking demon star, Medusa of the skies; fair but deadly to look on, even for one who is already dying.
Ah, the bright stars of the night. Almost they obliterate the clear white pain. A thousand stars shining in the ether; but no dazzling newcomer. And so little time left, so little time...
Yet still two-faced Medusa laughs from behind the clouds, demanding homage. Homage, Medusa, or a sword, a blade sharper than death itself.
The wind stirs. Night clouds obscure the universe. A lower music now, a different kind of death.
No stars tonight, my love.
No Selene.
IT WAS PAST ELEVEN OF THE CLOCK ON A RAIN-WASHED JUNE evening when Auguste de Montpellier rose from her bed and realized that her brother, Guy, had gone from the house. Because he was not always responsible for his actions, and because he was, like her, a stranger in an alien land, she felt the beginnings of fear: a familiar fear that touched her skin with cold fingers.
"Guy," ...
Martha Grimes
Intricately plotted, beautifully paced, The Music of the Spheres is an elegant historical novel rich in detail, at times Dickensian in its description of London. Elizabeth Redfern has made an exciting debut.
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