Murder at the Opera - Margaret Truman [0]
Margaret Truman, who knows where all the bodies are buried inside the Beltway, has written her most thrilling novel of suspense yet. Murder at the Opera features the popular crime-fighting couple Mac Smith and his wife, Annabel Reed-Smith, as they navigate the glitz, glamour, and grime that is Washington, D.C.
It ain’t over till the fat lady sings… but the show hasn’t even started yet when a diva is found dead. The soprano in question, a petite young Asian Canadian named Charise Lee, was scarcely a star at the Washington National Opera. But when the aspiring singer is stabbed in the heart backstage during rehearsals, she suddenly takes center stage.
Georgetown law professor Mac Smith thought he’d just be carrying a rapier in Tosca as a favor for his beloved Annabel, but now they’re both being pressured by the panicked theater board to unmask a killer. Providing accompaniment will be former homicide detective, current P.I., and eternal opera fan Raymond Pawkins.
Soon the Smiths find themselves dangerously improvising among an expanding cast of suspects with all sorts of scores to settle. What they uncover is an increasingly complex case reaching far beyond Washington to a dark world of informers and terror alerts in Iraq, and climaxing on a fateful night at the opera attended by none other than the President himself.
MURDER AT THE OPERA
A Novel by
Margaret Truman
Capital Crimes Series: Book 22
Copyright © 2006
by Margaret Truman
eISBN: 978-0-345-49566-2
Dedication
To Sam Vaughan, who set the editorial bar high,
and who has always been there to boost me over it.
You are, Sam, simply the best editor a writer
could ever hope for.
Acknowledgments
As an honorary trustee of the Washington National Opera, I look with great pride upon the wonderful men and women who have guided it into the top tier of American opera companies. It’s only fitting that Washington should join other world capitals as being home to an outstanding opera company
I thank Maestro Plácido Domingo, Washington National Opera’s general director, for allowing me to set this, my twenty-second book in the Capital Crime series, against the soaring splendor of his productions at the Kennedy Center. His remarkable talent and extraordinary artistic vision have inspired the men and women of the Washington National Opera to new heights, and the nation and its opera lovers are better for it. Bravo, Maestro!
And a special thanks to Jennifer Johnston, a delightful guide to the Washington National Opera, who opened up myriad doors, behind which few are privileged to see; to Bill Wooby, whose knowledge of the Washington arts scene has enriched more than one of my Capital Crime novels; to author and opera aficionado Charles Flowers; to my agent, Ted Chichak, whose knowledge and love of opera is extraordinary; and to opera critic John Shulson, for whom opera is no mystery.
Author’s Note
Fifty years ago Day Thorpe, music critic of the now defunct Washington Star, decided along with a few like-minded souls that Washington, D.C., needed an opera company, and founded the Opera Society of Washington, later changed to the simpler Washington Opera, and in 2000 renamed the Washington National Opera by an act of Congress. This Congressional name change was not inconsequential. Not only did America now have its own official opera company, all fifty states had a stake in it, giving those who raise necessary funds for the company a broader potential source of financial support.
The Washington National Opera (WNO) has evolved and grown over the past five decades from a regional company into one of international acclaim. Its productions rival those of the leading opera companies of America—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco—and the world.
In the beginning, performances were staged in small, cramped, borrowed theaters. But since 1971 it has staged its performances in the magnificent 2,300-seat Kennedy Center Opera House, and has been the resident opera company of the Kennedy Center