More like 2.5 stars. It was too long, too overly complicated. Mysteries don't need to be 400 pages and this one definitely didn't. It had three plots, yes they eventually dovetailed but at least one was not needed, if not two of them.

The main plot is Charise Lee, an opera student is killed at the D.C. Opera house and Mac Smith and his wife Annabel who are involved in the opera scene (both former lawyers) get swept up in it because the opera committee thinks the police need a hand. Also in this is Pawkins a former homicide detective turned PI in retirement, also a complete opera lover.

In the back ground we have a spy thriller thing going on in the Middle East that literally was the most boring thing ever with a bunch of side characters you couldn't care about because not enough time is given to them.

Then you have the missing songs written by Mozart-Hayden that went missing in D.C. after being 'discovered' at a yard sale in England and been sent to a DC university for authentication and the owner was murdered like 6 years before.

Mac and Annabel do zero detecting and they're the main pov characters. The two cops were pretty stereotypical (especially the older overweight African American one) and then the PI who starts out as a nice guy opera loving detective becomes a misogynistic jerk by the end. Don't get me started on the ending. It did something imo a mystery should never do.

Also it was SO repetitive. How many times was she going to tell us what a supernumerary was in opera? At least once a chapter apparently.

It was eye rolling in that everyone instantly fell in love with opera. I was fine with Pawkins and Annabel loving it and then Mac falling for it but literally every character was already in love with opera and those who didn't heard it once and couldn't get enough. Really? Does that match anyone's opera experience?

Even worse was the body shaming in this. Countless times we heard the slight Asian murder victim was too thin to be an opera singer. Opera singers need to be fat. On the other hand the cop is also constantly body shamed for being fat. I'm like okay yeah enough with this.

I haven't read others in the series though I was tempted. I looked through and it seems they only interconnect because they're in D.C. from blurbs they appear to be different characters. That said after listening to the audio book of this, I don't think i'll be looking for others.

This is a good "who done it" type mystery with no gore and no overt violence. Set in Washington DC, amateurs and professionals alike attempt to solve the murder of an aspiring young opera singer.

Enjoyed listening to this murder mystery/espionage story. The reader did an excellent job with the inflections, voices, and even used some voice modification for sounding as if he were on the TV or radio.

Very flat stereotypes for characters. Pathetically predictable. The terrorist side plot was very unimaginative and boring; giving it narrative space did nothing for the story except make it longer.
Good thing it was an audio book and I could multi-task, otherwise it would have been a waste of time.

This book started promising, like any other book in the world. We follow plenty of people in the story. A couple who were former defense attorneys, a retired detective, a talent manager, two active-duty detectives and an intelligence officer. A lot of characters to keep up with but the author did a great job to hook you to every single one of them and their story lines.

I read the first half and it was good, then out of nowhere another story line popped out that I had no freaking idea what the hell was going on. It threw me off a little bit. It was so random but I got intrigued.

I learned so much about operas, but I wasn’t sure whether if they were real or not. It was hard to separate an opera fact to pseudo fact, considering I don’t know anything about operas. But I did enjoy the the whole opera aspect of the book.

There were so many things happening but it wasn't overwhelming. It was very interesting how the author connected everything in the end. The problem I have with this book is it lacked an intense factor, a “wow” factor and it felt like the story was dragged just to throw a couple of more mysteries on top on an ongoing one. It was an underwhelming finish but overall a solid read. 3 stars!

Very flat stereotypes for characters. Pathetically predictable. The terrorist side plot was very unimaginative and boring; giving it narrative space did nothing for the story except make it longer.
Good thing it was an audio book and I could multi-task, otherwise it would have been a waste of time.