HER DEADLY MISCHIEF by Beverle Graves Myers

In this historical mystery series' 5th novel, set in 1742, the celebrated castrato Tito Amato is back home in Venice, on stage, in full-throated triumph over his rival Emilio, when a much-feted courtesan is stabbed in an opera box and flung down to the floor of the Teatro San Marco. Despite a whole theatre filled with possible witnesses including the city's new chief investigator, the killer eludes suspicion and capture while Tito untangles the threads of the dead Zulietta's conquests, her other relationships, and her childhood in Venice's ancient and rigidly controlled Jewish Ghetto. 

I laughed, I wept, I held my breath.

Tito Amato is musically gifted, sharp-witted, and engagingly human, always well-meaning but sometimes jealous or self-doubting or angrily impulsive. The supporting characters who have been with him since the first book are like my own family by now, and the new ones introduced for this novel are well-drawn, easily distinguishable and memorable long after the book ends. There's a fascinating scene or two in a glass-blowing factory and a solid look at the complex layered society in Baroque Venice.

This is my second time through this book, first time by audiobook, and while the series has always enchanted me, it's an even better experience now that I've learned so much about historical Venice myself for writing 'Timely Taffeta' (in which Maddie Hatter goes undercover in a fashion house famous for its jeweled Carnevale costumes) and can more fully envision every step Tito takes, every mood of the weather or the passersby or the frenetic gaiety of the great Piazza at the height of Carnevale. If I could, I'd commission a video game in which I follow Tito on his investigations through those fabled streets and canals, to the soundtrack of all the incredible music he sings through the series. 

These books are short but exquisite, so it's no hardship for any historical fiction fan to start from the first (Interrupted Aria, set in 1731) and continue on to get the full shape of not only the theatrical era in one of Europe's most fascinating cities but Tito's amazing and sometimes very sad life, his fortune at finding love when he had thought it out of reach, and his compassion for the frailty of humanity including his own.

The Tito Amato Mysteries

by Beverle Graves Myers

https://www.goodreads.com/series/41383-tito-amato

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