A Review of Tess Gerritsen’s Playing with Fire (Ballantine Books, 2015)

[sorayaz]

A Review of Tess Gerritsen’s Playing with Fire (Ballantine Books, 2015).
By Stephen Hong Sohn

So, once upon a time I did have a physical copy of this book, but I actually lost it. Within the last year, I was able to get a hold of an audiobook version, and I decided that it would be a great way to get “work” done, while on walks or in the car. I once tried to engage in this practice. Sometime, when I was still working up at Stanford, I decided to listen to White Tiger all the way down the 5, when I was sometimes traveling between Mountain View and Southern California. By the time I got home, I realized I had only really comprehended about 75% of what I had listened to and that I needed to read it again. Thus, you can imagine I was a little concerned that the same fate would befall me this time around.

Let’s let B&N give us some context: “In a shadowy antiques shop in Rome, violinist Julia Ansdell happens upon a curious piece of music—the Incendio waltz—and is immediately entranced by its unusual composition. Full of passion, torment, and chilling beauty, and seemingly unknown to the world, the waltz, its mournful minor key, its feverish arpeggios, appear to dance with a strange life of their own. Julia is determined to master the complex work and make its melody heard. Back home in Boston, from the moment Julia’s bow moves across the strings, drawing the waltz’s fiery notes into the air, something strange is stirred—and Julia’s world comes under threat. The music has a terrifying and inexplicable effect on her young daughter, who seems violently transformed. Convinced that the hypnotic strains of Incendio are weaving a malevolent spell, Julia sets out to discover the man and the meaning behind the score. Her quest beckons Julia to the ancient city of Venice, where she uncovers a dark, decades-old secret involving a dangerously powerful family that will stop at nothing to keep Julia from bringing the truth to light.”

What’s perhaps most interesting to me about this work is that Tess Gerritsen not only wrote this novel, but composed a piece that is meant to be Incendio. I didn’t realize it as I was listening to the audiobook, but the violin piece that I was hearing was likely the version that Gerritsen herself composed. I had no idea she was that multi-talented. For some reason, this time around I had no trouble getting immersed in this audiobook. I’m not really sure about the difference, but I do believe it has something to do with the fact that I wasn’t driving while listening to this narrative: I was mostly walking around with an earpiece.

In any case, what the description doesn’t tell you is there are, based upon my aural recall, two narrative discourses. Julia Ansdell gets a first person narrative voice and then there’s a third person narrative voice that shifts us into the past, back to pre-WWII Italy. In this period, Lorenzo Todesco is getting to know Laura Balboni, as both are talented musicians. But, you know we’re in troubled waters if we’re in pre-WWII Italy. Plus, we eventually discover that Lorenzo is Jewish, and you immediately get that sinking feeling that things will not end well. The narratives don’t really start colliding until Julia begins to feel like she is going crazy and that she must travel to Italy herself to figure out what the mystery is behind Incendio.

As she gets deeper into this mystery, Lorenzo’s narrative gets darker and darker, and ever more darker. I found the sections involving Lorenzo and Laura to be, in some ways, far more compelling than anything going on with Julia Ansdell’s life. If there is any critique to be made, I wanted a stronger connection between Ansdell and Lorenzo, more than the fact that both are musicians. The personal conflicts that mire Julia, especially the one involving the history of mental illness in her family, while exerting a kind of narrative weight, fall incredibly flat against the journey that Lorenzo must make. His arc, which does provocatively bolster the title of his violin composition, absolutely overshadows anything related to Julia. In any case, fans of Gerritsen should be pleased, as she gives them (and herself) a break from the Rizzoli & Isles series to spread her wings in other directions.

Buy the Book Here!

Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Gnei Soraya Zarook

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Gnei Soraya Zarook, PhD Student in English, at gzaro001@ucr.edu