Thursday, March 3, 2011

Vienna Waltz-Teresa Grant

Vienna Waltz
Teresa Grant
Kensington, Apr 1 2011, $15.00
ISBN 9780758254238

Following the defeat of Napoleon, the European leadership gathers in Vienna to discuss how to draw the new boundaries. Though security is at intense levels with the foreign ministers of the superpowers in attendance, someone kills Russian Princess Tatiana Kirsanova.

British diplomat Malcolm Rannoch is looking at Tatiana’s corpse in her quarters when his wife Suzanne arrives. He swears he just got there only a few minutes before her. Each insists they were summoned there. Although she has major doubts about her spouse’s voracity, Suzanne teams up with Malcolm to investigate who murdered the Russian beauty before a diplomatic nightmare devastates the Congress of Vienna before it can begin in earnest.

Using real persona (Tallyrand, Metternich, Castlereagh and Wellington, etc.) and events like the festivities that occurred due to the end of the latest war to end all wars and the subsequent Congress of Vienna peace conference of 1814-1815 to anchor time and place, Teresa Grant provides an excellent historical amateur sleuth historical mystery. Suzanne believes her spouse is hiding the real reason he was in Tatiana’s room though to her that is obvious. Still she joins him as the couple investigates who murdered the Russian royal before the homicide kills the Congress of Vienna efforts to redraw the map in order to prevent another Napoleonic Era of war.

Harriet Klausner

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