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Cassandra Reilly #4
The Case of the Orphaned Bassoonists: A Cassandra Reilly Mystery
Cassandra Reilly arrives in Venice to see why her best friend Nicky Gibbons, bassoonist extraordinaire, has been accused of stealing a Venetian family heirloom. With an international cast of characters, the luminous backdrop of Venice, and the author's trademark wit, the mystery is as thrilling as a vaporetto ride. Praise for Cassandra Reilly: "Wilson's lesbian globetrotter has a restless nature, a facility for languages, and a lively curiosity about foreign cultures. Toss in her offbeat sense of humor and you've got a terrific road pal." - The New York Times Book Review
224 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 2000
5 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Wilson
42 books26 followersBarbara Wilson is the pen name of author and translator Barbara Sjoholm. Her mysteries, written under the name Barbara Wilson, include two series, one with printer Pam Nilsen (Murder in the Collective) and one with translator-sleuth Cassandra Reilly. Her mysteries include the Lambda-award-winning Gaudi Afternoon, made into a film of the same name. She was a co-founder of Seal Press and in 2020 received the annual Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society for her contributions to lesbian literature. Her books have been published in England and translated into Spanish, Finnish, German, and Japanese.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 6, 2021
For a mystery, this book wasn't very mysterious at all. In fact it was very dull and not much was really going on. The main character, Cassandra who translates books for a living, never actually found herself in any danger as she was in Venice to help her friend. Even odder is the fact the friend apparently didn't even need that much help as she soon sneaks off on her own. This allows Cassandra to go about Venice having coffee at Cafe's and other similar (but very boring plot wise) things.
Another problem I had in here was the individual characters. The book throws a bunch of them at you at once and I had a hard time keeping them straight in my mind. Who was who? The two swedes were pretty easy due to their unusual names but the others? I kept mixing them up. Part of the reason is they were too similar and nothing really made them stand out. By the end of the book I didn't know them any better than at the beginning. In some weird ways they were just names and not actually characters?
One page in the book had a very bizarre line. A woman character was talking to Cassandra (it was Nikki, her housemate) and asked her "can you be my brother?" .... I just don't understand that. At all. Cassandra is a woman so how could she be her brother?
This book did make me ask a lot of questions about Venice itself. Not anything to do with the plot but just questions in general. Like do those canals ever freeze and if they do how to the locals get around then? You can't use a boat on a frozen river! Another one is why do they have canals instead of regular roads? The book also mentioned Vivaldi a lot so I looked him up as well and listened to one of his songs on youtube. Plus I found out what a bassoon was.
But as a mystery this book falls flat. There's no suspense or anything. Not even any snooping. No sense of danger. The main character spends most of her time traveling about the city going to cafes, a library, a museum, etc and talking to various people. I didn't care about any of the characters at all.
Another problem I had in here was the individual characters. The book throws a bunch of them at you at once and I had a hard time keeping them straight in my mind. Who was who? The two swedes were pretty easy due to their unusual names but the others? I kept mixing them up. Part of the reason is they were too similar and nothing really made them stand out. By the end of the book I didn't know them any better than at the beginning. In some weird ways they were just names and not actually characters?
One page in the book had a very bizarre line. A woman character was talking to Cassandra (it was Nikki, her housemate) and asked her "can you be my brother?" .... I just don't understand that. At all. Cassandra is a woman so how could she be her brother?
This book did make me ask a lot of questions about Venice itself. Not anything to do with the plot but just questions in general. Like do those canals ever freeze and if they do how to the locals get around then? You can't use a boat on a frozen river! Another one is why do they have canals instead of regular roads? The book also mentioned Vivaldi a lot so I looked him up as well and listened to one of his songs on youtube. Plus I found out what a bassoon was.
But as a mystery this book falls flat. There's no suspense or anything. Not even any snooping. No sense of danger. The main character spends most of her time traveling about the city going to cafes, a library, a museum, etc and talking to various people. I didn't care about any of the characters at all.
May 6, 2020
Possibly the best of the Cassandra Reilly series
This may well be the best of the Cassandra Reilly series (although I’m very fond of Gaudi Afternoon). It’s got pace, plotting, some interesting characters and a great sense of place.
Wilson can’t write authentic dialogue outside for British characters to save her life. Her Scottish bassoonist uses the odd ‘wee’ but otherwise has the speech patterns of an American as does the mysterious Albert who is supposed to be a Manc.
As usual Cassandra gets to have a brief fling. In fact, considering the amount of sex there is in the novel it’s strange how asexual the writing is. I don’t mean that as a criticism. I don’t think the story would work better if this side of things was handled less breezily.
Going back to Albert, I really liked Albert. The story seemed to pick up whenever he entered the frame. He’s a nice mixture of ambiguous and disturbing. Sometimes Wilson’s characters can feel a bit generic but Albert has an individual presence; as to some extent do Anna and Nicola.
I didn’t guess the killer’s identity. This isn’t the central mystery of the book in any case. Wilson weaves questions about identity, belonging, kinship & memory into the narrative ways that never become didactic. Curious how books & films set in Venice often explore these themes - a city of ghosts and shadows?
This may well be the best of the Cassandra Reilly series (although I’m very fond of Gaudi Afternoon). It’s got pace, plotting, some interesting characters and a great sense of place.
Wilson can’t write authentic dialogue outside for British characters to save her life. Her Scottish bassoonist uses the odd ‘wee’ but otherwise has the speech patterns of an American as does the mysterious Albert who is supposed to be a Manc.
As usual Cassandra gets to have a brief fling. In fact, considering the amount of sex there is in the novel it’s strange how asexual the writing is. I don’t mean that as a criticism. I don’t think the story would work better if this side of things was handled less breezily.
Going back to Albert, I really liked Albert. The story seemed to pick up whenever he entered the frame. He’s a nice mixture of ambiguous and disturbing. Sometimes Wilson’s characters can feel a bit generic but Albert has an individual presence; as to some extent do Anna and Nicola.
I didn’t guess the killer’s identity. This isn’t the central mystery of the book in any case. Wilson weaves questions about identity, belonging, kinship & memory into the narrative ways that never become didactic. Curious how books & films set in Venice often explore these themes - a city of ghosts and shadows?
February 13, 2022
With Venice as a setting, lots of juicy tidbits about music in Vivaldi's time and a lesbian translator as the chief (amateur) investigator, I thought this book would be a hoot. In the end, it did prove a pleasant light read, but I won't go out of my way to read more Cassandra Reilly mysteries. It's a pity that 2 of the characters end up being descendants of a Dachau victim, first because it's a hell of a coincidence, second because it seems gratuitous to drag WWII into a nice contemporary mystery set in sunny Italy. If it was an attempt to add a degree of cheap pathos to what is mostly a very light-hearted story, I think it's in poor taste.
September 29, 2019
Bassoons don't have a "mouthpiece".
September 24, 2020
Some passages are enjoyable.
June 26, 2023
Very solid murder mystery, Yay, travel
Read
June 18, 2020When my mother died, she willed me her collection of girl's series novels. There was Nancy Drew, of course—the original editions that had over 200 pages—but there were also books featuring Trixie Belden, the Dana Girls, and the greatly overrated Judy Bolton. One of my favorites—and one of the reasons I like the Cassandra Reilly series so much—was the Vicki Barr, Flight Stewardess series. In each book, Vicki flew off to another city or country, and in each new location she was able to take in the scenery as well as solve some type of mystery. Few other such series books mixed education and entertainment.
This is true in lesbian mystery novels as well. In those I have read, only Katherine V. Forrest does it in spades. The Beverly Malibu, which goes into the repressive McCarthy years, and Sleeping Bones, which delves into the beginnings of World War II, are far more interesting and important in their historical and societal aspects than the mysteries in which they are framed.
So, too, are the descriptions of the places Cassandra Reilly visits. The first novel in the series, Gaudi Afternoon, describes Antoni Gaudi’s beautiful and mysterious architecture so glowingly that it makes the reader want to head to Barcelona on the next flight. Trouble in Transylvania not only describes the various places in Romania and Hungary that Cassandra visits, but gives the odd and divisive history of that region. The Case of the Orphaned Bassoonists does the same with the beautiful city of Venice. If you don’t use your Google search engine at least twice during each book, you are not reading it right.
But Wilson doesn't stop at describing the scenery; when she can, she provides the stories with a feminist context as well. In Trouble in Transylvania, she gives us a rundown on the prehistoric matriarchal societies in what is called the Other Europe. In The Orphaned Bassoonists, the focus is on orphaned girls in Venice during the Renaissance who were taken in by nuns and taught to become virtuoso musicians. Heady and touching stuff—and history that almost no one has been taught. Until now.
The story begins when Cassandra’s good friend Nicki is asked to come to Venice to take part in a musical performance and is falsely accused of stealing a valuable bassoon thought to have been played by one of the orphaned girls hundreds of years earlier. So Cassandra shows up to save the day, as usual. But, as usual, Cassandra really doesn't do much to solve anything, although she does make inquiries. Cassandra’s mysteries usually solve themselves. And, as usual, she finds time to get laid, although it is off camera (again, as usual).
Buy these books and read them for what they are. Good travel writing with a mystery and a lesbian twist. Are they the best mysteries? No, but few are. Are they entertaining and enjoyable? Even a little endearing? They are to me. Just as the Vicki Barr mysteries were when I was growing up.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
This is true in lesbian mystery novels as well. In those I have read, only Katherine V. Forrest does it in spades. The Beverly Malibu, which goes into the repressive McCarthy years, and Sleeping Bones, which delves into the beginnings of World War II, are far more interesting and important in their historical and societal aspects than the mysteries in which they are framed.
So, too, are the descriptions of the places Cassandra Reilly visits. The first novel in the series, Gaudi Afternoon, describes Antoni Gaudi’s beautiful and mysterious architecture so glowingly that it makes the reader want to head to Barcelona on the next flight. Trouble in Transylvania not only describes the various places in Romania and Hungary that Cassandra visits, but gives the odd and divisive history of that region. The Case of the Orphaned Bassoonists does the same with the beautiful city of Venice. If you don’t use your Google search engine at least twice during each book, you are not reading it right.
But Wilson doesn't stop at describing the scenery; when she can, she provides the stories with a feminist context as well. In Trouble in Transylvania, she gives us a rundown on the prehistoric matriarchal societies in what is called the Other Europe. In The Orphaned Bassoonists, the focus is on orphaned girls in Venice during the Renaissance who were taken in by nuns and taught to become virtuoso musicians. Heady and touching stuff—and history that almost no one has been taught. Until now.
The story begins when Cassandra’s good friend Nicki is asked to come to Venice to take part in a musical performance and is falsely accused of stealing a valuable bassoon thought to have been played by one of the orphaned girls hundreds of years earlier. So Cassandra shows up to save the day, as usual. But, as usual, Cassandra really doesn't do much to solve anything, although she does make inquiries. Cassandra’s mysteries usually solve themselves. And, as usual, she finds time to get laid, although it is off camera (again, as usual).
Buy these books and read them for what they are. Good travel writing with a mystery and a lesbian twist. Are they the best mysteries? No, but few are. Are they entertaining and enjoyable? Even a little endearing? They are to me. Just as the Vicki Barr mysteries were when I was growing up.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
January 30, 2010
Lesbian translator Cassandra Reilly flies to London to help her friend Nicola, who's accused of stealing an antique bassoon. Nicky inherited her house from her elderly friend Olivia, but one of the other bassoonists at the Venetian conference claims to be Olivia's long lost granddaughter. Then one of the musicians is murdered. Nicky is concentrating on a work--book or film, she isn't sure--on the orphans who played in convent orchestras. Surely some of these talented young women composed music, too. Wilson's usual combination of exotic locale, sex and mystery as before.
March 4, 2013
Translator Cassandra Reilly is called to Venice to help her housemate Nikki, a bassoonist, who is being accused of stealing an ancient bassoon from the era of Vivaldi. Decent mystery, set in Venice, with some musical history. Fun quick read.
Note: the edition I have from 2000 lists the author as Barbara Wilson, as does the ISBN citation
Note: the edition I have from 2000 lists the author as Barbara Wilson, as does the ISBN citation
January 11, 2015
3.5 Apparently the last of the Sjoholm/Wilson mysteries. Unfortunate, for she's been a pleasant distraction - probably the most literate/cultured writer in the lesbian mystery sub-genre - reliable for a fun, colorful read that easily makes up for weak or unnecessary (such as here) plotting. I'd love more, but after 15 years certainly won't hold my breath.
June 11, 2010
This is one mystery I couldn't get into. I did not find the "detective" that appealing.
January 16, 2016
This is one of my favorite wacky & witty mystery books featuring a lesbian sleuth! Enjoy a vicarious adventure in Venice with Cassandra Reilly, amateur detective and professional book translator.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews