Book description
Vienna, 1903. An operatic diva, Ida Rosenkrantz, is found dead
in her luxurious villa. It appears that she has taken an overdose of
morphine, but a broken rib, discovered during autopsy, suggests other
and more sinister possibilities. Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt
seeks the assistance of his young friend, the psychoanalyst Dr Max
Liebermann, and they begin their inquiries at Vienna's majestic opera
house, where its director, Gustav Mahler, is struggling to maintain a
pure artistic vision while threatened on all sides by pompous
bureaucrats, vainglorious singers, and a hostile press. When the
demagogue Mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, becomes the prime suspect -
with an election only months away - the Rosenkrantz case becomes
politically explosive.
The trail leads Rheinhardt and Liebermann, via a social climbing
professor of psychiatry, to the Hofburg palace and the mysterious Lord
Marshal's office - a shadowy bureau that deals ruthlessly with enemies
of the ageing Emperor Franz Josef. As the investigation proceeds, the
investigators are placed in great personal danger, as corruption is
exposed at the very highest levels. Meanwhile, Liebermann pursues two
private obsessions: a coded message in a piece of piano music, and the
alluring Englishwoman, Miss Amelia Lydgate.
Romance and high drama coincide as the Habsburg Empire teeters on
the edge of scandal and ruin.
Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has held
lecturing posts at the Institute of Psychiatry and King's College,
London. He has written self-help manuals (
How to Stop Worrying,
Understanding Obsessions and Compulsions
) non-fiction for the general reader (
Changing Minds, Hidden Minds,
Love Sick
), academic text books and over thirty academic papers in international
journals. He has also published seven novels, six of which are the
critically acclaimed 'Liebermann Papers'.
