If ever there was a book with my name on, it was this one. So when I spotted it in Waterstones, I pounced on it and, unusually for me, bought the paperback rather than going home and ordering it on Kindle. I had enjoyed Evie Woods’s The Lost Bookshop so I was confident that her new book, The Violin Maker’s Secret, would be a good read.
It is – although it’s not without flaws and isn’t in the same league as The Lost Bookshop. William Rathbone makes a violin in the eighteenth century. It’s unique as any handmade instrument is, with a distinctive voice and a capacity to bring out the best and the worst in anyone who owns it. In fact The Violin cannot be owned. It simply has a series of custodians, some more legitimate than others. The plot is, in effect, a version of the “changing hands” stories we were all made to write in primary school about, for example, pennies moving from person to person. Traditionally such tales take the item in question back to its starting point and that’s what eventually happens to The Violin in a rather grating surreal contrivance.
The starting point is Devlin, who works in Lost and Found at Heathrow Airport finding an unclaimed violin and taking possession of it. He takes it to his former teacher, Walter and together they consult an expert, Gabrielle. Then, after their homes are raided, they realise that someone with power wants The Violin. Does that mean it’s something very rare and/or valuable?
The plotting leaps about, not always smoothly, as Woods gradually reveals every character’s backstory: What happened to stop Gabrielle playing? Why is Devlin so nervous about relationships? How sick is Walter? At the same time she slowly tells the story of The Violin. Who played it, when and why? Thus we meet fine players of the past including Paganini. Who, meanwhile, is Verity and why is she so determined to get her hands on The Violin? It’s an ambitious, complex, interwoven narrative which darts all over Europe, spans three centuries and isn’t always quite coherent.
Woods gives a strong sense of the power of The Violin, its rich sound and distinctive appearance. She has evidently studied violins in many places and researched the subject scrupulously. Moreover I enjoyed the accounts of the research within the plot especially in Cremona and Dublin. On the other hand in places it’s plain silly. There is no way that traumatised Gabrielle, who hasn’t played for a long time, would discover an old manuscript which she then immediately plays on The Violin – at sight and in public, wowing everyone in the room. At that point my willing suspension of disbelief started to wane.
There are other serious problems too. A man who escapes from prison would not, after his recapture, immediately be given a “day pass” and allowed to start a business. And, personally, perhaps because I have no truck with fantasy in any form, I’m very uncomfortable with using The Violin itself as an occasional narrator.
The characters are enjoyably plausible though and I was happy to spend time with the three main protagonists. Verity, a stereotypical Cruella d Vil sort, is much less convincing although there’s inevitably an explanation for her obsession. Ultimately though, it’s a novel which – although worth reading – can’t make up its mind what it is. Towards the end we’re romping though a world which seems to be James Bond spliced with Mills and Boon. When Walter finally meets Gabrielle’s counsellor it’s all so daft that I laughed aloud.
Nonetheless it’s a pleasure to read a novel about something as dear to my heart as a violin. Could we have more musical instrument fictions please? It could be a new sub-genre.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The Place of Tides by James Rebanks
