title: The Vanishing Violinist: A Joan Spencer Mystery
author:  Sara Hoskinson Frommer 
description: Love's in the air in the fourth Joan Spencer cozy (after Murder &amp; Sullivan). While Joan is planning her wedding with Det. Lt. Fred Lundquist in Oliver, Ind., her daughter calls from New York to say she's engaged to one Bruce Graham, a classical musician who will be participating in an international violin competition in nearby Indianapolis. Joan gets a chance to meet her future son-in-law when she's invited to a picnic given by the families who help to host the competition. Tragedy strikes when a German violinist slams his hand into a stone planter while trying to catch a Frisbee, ending his chances to compete. Then a Brazilian musician has her Stradivarius stolen immediately before her first concert. Gamely, she plays on a borrowed instrument, performing well enough to make the cut. Before the second round, however, she vanishes, and the police suspect Bruce of taking her instrument and being involved in her disappearance. Prompted by her daughter's assurances that Bruce is incapable of such crimes, Joan leaps to his defense and decides she must help Fred find the real culprit. Frommer's latest emphasizes Joan's gentle levelheadedness and Fred's devotion to her. It's a well-plotted tale, as the author keeps readers guessing as to whether Bruce is as sweet as he seems, and wisely picks up the pace once the culprit has been identified. The novel's highlights, however, are the exceptional descriptions of the musical performances, passages in which Frommer proves herself, at least for a moment or two, a Paganini of prose. (Sept.) <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  # The Little Violinist
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Thomas Bailey Aldrich
  
  
  This page formatted 2007 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
      
  
  Produced by David Widger
  
  
  
  
  
  THE LITTLE VIOLINIST.
  
  
  By Thomas Bailey Aldrich
  
  
  Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company
  
  
  Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901
  
  
  
  
  
  Weep with me, all you that read
  
  
  This little story;
  
  
  And know, for whom a tear you shed,
  
  
  Death's self is sorry.
  
  
  Ben Jonson.
  
  
  This story is no invention of mine. I could not invent anything half
  
  
  so lovely and pathetic as seems to me the incident which has come
  
  
  ready-made to my hand.
  
  
  Some of you, doubtless, have heard of James Speaight, the infant
  
  
  violinist, or Young Americus, as he was called. He was born in London,
  
  
  I believe, and was only four years old when his father brought him to
  
  
  this country, less than three years ago. Since that time he has
  
  
  appeared in concerts and various entertainments in many of our
  
  
  prin