Playing with Fire
Fiction, Historic Fiction, Holocaust
Tess Gerritsen
Ballantine Books
October 27, 2015
ebook
288
English
May 14, 2017 May 19, 2017
In a masterly new thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series, a beautiful violinist is haunted by a very old piece of music she finds in a strange antique shop in Rome. The first time Julia Ansdell picks up “The Incendio Waltz,” she knows it's a strikingly unusual composition. But while playing the piece, Julia blacks out and awakens to find her young daughter implicated in acts of surprising violence. And when she travels to Venice to find the previous owner of the music, she uncovers a dark secret that involves dangerously powerful people—a family who would stop at nothing to keep Julia from bringing the truth to light.
About the Book
This is my 250th read book registered on Goodread website, obviously it isn’t my 250th read overall in my life since I’m sure I forgot to add a lot of books to the website but I would like to start this category with this book.
I’m used to Tess Gerritsen’s books, or rather I read her Rizzoli & Isles series thanks to the TV show which introduced me to Rizzoli’s character, so when I saw this book in the “suggested” column of my Kobo account, I said why not? As usual I read the word “violent” in the summary and think it’s a mystery/thriller genre. Oh I was so wrong! At first, coming from a mystery/fantasy book in which supernatural was the key to the book (which I didn’t like) I thought “oh gosh, no! Not another book like the previous one!” but when I started the second part (the first Lorenzo’s section) I was blown away. I couldn’t rest until I finished the book.
The story has two POV, Julia , set in present time and Lorenzo, set in the years right before WWII and during the war. The two timelines intersect themselves, but not in a way that is confusing. The book is divided in “blocks”, each block named after one of the two characters and each block is composed by a few chapters, so the two timelines intersect nicely and it’s easy to follow.
The book starts with Jullia buying an ancient book of musics and among them there is a waltz written in pencil by L. Todesco. This story/timeline isn’t what got me hooked, but the second one was what was interesting in my opinion.
I avidly wanted to know Lorenzo’s story, his “ending”, I wanted to know if he survived and reunited with Laura, his beloved, even if he wasn’t really a main character (he was a mean to an end). The “mystery” was second for me, I know it shouldn’t, since it was the main plot, but I think I wouldn’t have liked this book so much if it weren’t for Lorenzo.
And the ending (of the main plot) wan surprising for once. I know there was a solution to the “Mystery” and I watch a lot of TV shows so I should have know the “resolution” was that (obviously I’m not going to tell you) but I was so kidnapped by Lorenzo’s story that I didn’t see that coming. And it’s the first time I’m surprised reading a book. Moreover it’s the first time that a book makes me cry… Maybe it’s because of the genre I usually read but I actually never cried over a book. I do cry over a TV show, over a fanfiction, even over a TV commercial (yes, I’m strange, I know), but never over a book. At the end I was so pleased with this book that I was happy with my purchase.
