Mephisto Waltz: A Max Liebermann Mystery

A prologue describing the assassination of Empress Elizabeth of Austria in Geneva in 1898 casts an ominous shadow over the events of Edgar-finalist Tallis’s gripping seventh mystery featuring psychiatrist Max Liebermann (after 2012’s Death and the Maiden). In Vienna in 1904, an unidentified male body is found in an abandoned piano factory, shot through the head and seated on a chair in front of three other chairs. Liebermann believes that the furniture’s deliberate arrangement indicates that the man’s execution was ordained by three people sitting in judgment, possibly for the violation of a secret society’s rules. The corpse’s webbed feet and scars lead to his identification as Angelo Callari, an Italian who recently arrived in the city, where he joined a society promoting international comity and the better treatment of the poor. Callari also has links to those who pose a threat to the Austrian throne. Series fans will be pleased to see Liebermann has a new love-interest, Amelia Lydgate, a former patient who injects some humor into the otherwise grim tale. Readers will hope they won’t have to wait another six years for Liebermann’s next outing. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates. (Feb.)