Maestro

Herbie Kruger #4

by John Gardner

America's greatest living orchestra conductor, Louis Passau, has reached the great age of ninety years. Still sound in mind and body, he prepares to commemorate this milestone at a concert in his honor at New York's Lincoln Center. But scandal threatens to spoil Passau's celebration when he is accused of having spied for Hitler and of aiding clandestine KGB operations in the United States during the Cold War. The CIA, FBI and British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) have come to an arrangement with the he may conduct the concert, but he is to be interrogated immediately afterward by SIS agent-runner Herbie Kruger. When the concert ends, an attempt is made on Passau's life and "Big Herbie" - along with the quick-witted and very desirable young SIS agent Pucky Curtiss - takes the Maestro into hiding. There Kruger and Curtiss listen to the extraordinary confession of this fatally flawed man - brilliant on the podium, charming in public, foul-mouthed and streetwise in private - a man whose deceits, successes and often tragic loves are as improbable as they are enthralling. As it becomes more and more difficult to separate the truth about Passau's life from the fiction, it also becomes nearly impossible to determine who the Maestro of the title actually is - the musician, Passau, or his interrogator, Kruger. As past deceits explode into the present, the lives of all three participants are twisted into a maelstrom of tragedy surrounding the Maestro.

Genres: Fiction, Espionage

439 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1993

About the author

Before coming an author of fiction in the early 1960s, John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all, Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including Maestro, which was the New York Times book of the year. He was also invited by Ian Fleming’s literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles, including Licence Renewed and Icebreaker.

Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy, Conan Doyle’s eponymous villain of the Sherlock Holmes series.

Reviews

[Sondra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ninety-year-old Maestro Louis Passau is a world-renowned musical prodigy, pianist, composer, and orchestra conductor who has traveled the world bringing joy and inspiration to audiences with his concerts and performances. Despite his phenomenal contributions in the realm of music, Passau is a man with a dark past whose former sins and transgressions include crimes ranging from larceny and bootlegging to homicide and, according to some of his accusers, treason by way of giving away top secret information about American politics and war strategies to Nazi and Communist spies during World War II and the Cold War, all the while maintaining his impeccable image as one of the most gifted musical artists of the Twentieth Century.

There is a little something for everybody in this lengthy novel by the prolific author of fiction, John Gardner, including organized crime, espionage, action/adventure, mystery, romance, and even historical fiction, as the “hero” recounts the circumstances of his childhood in pre-World War II Germany and the infamous immigrant ghettoes of New York’s Lower East Side in the early thirties.

The circumstances surrounding Louis Passau’s criminal past and his rise to stardom are gradually revealed to the reader in a series of interviews conducted by investigators to determine whether the charges of treason are justified. The maestro’s story unravels through hundreds of pages filled with action, adventure, romance, and a mind-blowing cast of colorful characters. Despite the slow pace of the interviews, the story is compelling. Above all, there is MUSIC. The author has an impressive knowledge of both classical and popular music, and almost every one of this book’s 600 pages is replete with references to music.

The central question explored by this book, in my opinion, is whether or not the redemptive power of music to heal the wounds of the past and bring joy to listeners in the present is enough to “atone” for the suffering and heartbreak Passau’s bad behavior brought to others in the past. This is something the individual reader will have to decide for him or herself.

I was all set to give this book five stars and call it a masterpiece---until I got to the last hundred pages. The story moves along at a steady pace when suddenly the author switches gears with a confusing new story line that appears to have little to do with everything that went before it. A bunch of new characters are introduced that are only vaguely alluded to in earlier pages, and the ending drags on interminably for another hundred pages. Regrettably, I must factor this into my rating. As a music lover myself, I base my rating on the skillful way the author uses the uplifting power of music to relieve the darkness of an otherwise tragic story, and give the book four stars.

[Neil Fulwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written and set at the end of the Cold War, Gardner’s forgivably self-indulgent doorstopper functions as three things at once: an elegy for the espionage drama, a sweeping rags-to-riches tale, and a love letter to classical music. It seamlessly weaves in Roaring Twenties gangster shenanigans, wartime drama, a sun-drenched and star-crossed romance, and enough divided loyalties and conflicting personas to keep a team of psychiatrists tied up for months. It’s at its best when Gardner is revelling in the saltiness and appalling behaviour of his main character, less so towards the end when he tries to make A Big Important Statement About The Pointlessness Of It All and just lumbers into cheap, obvious melodrama instead.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I managed to read this by mistake - I was supposed to read Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy, an Australian author, and downloaded the wrong book from the library. Big mistake! This was 600 pages long and I kept asking myself when it would be over! The first few chapters felt like they were written in another language; every character seemed to have 3 or 4 names to cause confusion. It did pick up in the middle but the ending was no surprise. I've read other John Gardner books and they have been good but this one was pretty bad.

[Hoyadaisy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm amazed that this is so highly rated.

I loved the earlier Herbie Kruger novels, but this is a slog--754 tedious pages. It recounts the whole life, in minute detail, of a suspected spy under interrogation. When I say "whole life," I mean from young childhood.

Gardner throws you a bone by have tiny spy vignettes along the way but even those are pretty boring (e.g., the difficulty of getting groceries to a safe house).

Hoping the next in the series will be better.

[Peter C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written but a little long.

Totally enjoyed, but it was a little bit sexually explicit and seemed a bit unnecessary.

A good storyline and somewhat believable for us who do not work in tradecraft.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful….

The Kruger series goes from strength to strength, for me this is by far the best of them all. It’s the most complex and the longest…..but an absolute triumph of twists and turns.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dipped into the Herbie Kruger series at the end, so I missed a lot references. But it was still an enjoyable spy book that while low on action (it is mainly an old spy telling his story to Kruger) is still very readable and intense.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very slow read, at least for me. It’s about the whirlwind debrief of a decades long spy. There’s plenty of implied action, but very little actual action. Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting but not a page turner.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book (3 stars). It was far too long for where it went. The writer has talent but the book could have been half as long. I am not sure I would read any more of John Gardner's books.

[Avwriter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book turned out to be much deeper and more poignant than I expected it to be. I picked this up years ago as an impulse buy in a used bookstore, but it turned out to be one of the better novels of the genre that I have read, especially for anyone who enjoys classical music. The plot is built around a world-famous orchestra conductor, somewhat modeled on von Karajan, who led a double life as a spy throughout his career. Gardner is quite obviously a music lover, and manages to work a lot of meaningful discussion of music into the book, giving the reader a vivid picture of what a conductor's work is like. Additionally, the plot winds its way through most of the 20th century, with many unexpected turns and twists. It is the kind of book that I enjoy coming back to every few years.

[Jonathan Pedlar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A finely woven, richly coloured fabric, changing constantly as the light moves around

The warp of biography interwoven with the weft of espionage. Gardner's characters, dialogue and placement of plot in time and place, along with the steady uncovering of lies and truths keep you bound. I wish I had discovered Gardner before.

[Cws]

A Gar

[Larry West · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fourth Herbie Kruger novel. It is good and worth reading but It is 600 pages and stages in places. There are also plot s that are not fleshed out.

[Ed-Eleanor Busch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read!

From page one to the end, Gardner grabs the reader and really does not let go. Probably the best Gardner book I have read.

[J.Israeli-Zindel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book!

Excellent book .John Gardner at his best.couldn’t put it down and continued thinking of it when wasn’t reading.an absolute joy