Daniel Jacobus Mystery

7 primary works

Devil's Trill

by Gerald Elias

Published 18 August 2009

Daniel Jacobus is a blind, reclusive, vulgar violin teacher living in self-imposed exile in rural New England. He spends his time chain smoking, listening to old LPs, and berating students in the hope that they will flee. Jacobus, however, is drawn back into the world he left behind when he decides to attend the Grimsley Competition at Carnegie Hall. The winner of this competition is granted the honor of playing the 'Piccolino' Stradivarius,' a uniquely dazzling violin that has brought misfortune to all who possessed it over the centuries. Nine year old Kamryn Vander wins the competition, but before she can get an opportunity to play the price less violin, it is stolen. Then Vander's teacher and Jacobus' nemesis Victoria Jablonski is brutally murdered. Jacobus becomes the primary suspect in both crimes, and sets out to prove his innocence against all odds.

Danse Macabre

by Gerald Elias

Published 31 August 2010

Just after his Carnegie Hall swansong and before his imminent departure for retirement in France, beloved violinist and humanitarian Rene Allard is brutally murdered with a mysterious weapon. His young African American rival, crossover artist BTower, is spotted at the scene of the crime hovering over the contorted body of Allard with blood on his hands. In short order the aloof and arrogant BTower is convicted and sentenced to death, in part the result of the testimony of blind and curmudgeonly violin pedagogue Daniel Jacobus, like millions of others, an ardent admirer of Allard. Justice has been served...or has it? Jacobus is dragged back into the case kicking and screaming, and reluctantly follows a trail of broken violins and broken lives as it leads inexorably to the truth, and to his own mortal peril.

Death and the Maiden

by Gerald Elias

Published 16 August 2011

Dogged by internal dissension and by a potentially devastating lawsuit from its fired second violinist, the famed New Magini String Quartet is on the brink of professional and personal collapse. The quartet pins its hopes on a multi-media Carnegie Hall performance of Franz Schubert's masterpiece, "Death and the Maiden," to resurrect its faltering fortunes. But as the fateful downbeat approaches, a la Agatha Christie, one by one the quartet's musicians mysteriously vanish, including second violinist, Yumi Shinagawa, former student of renowned blind pedagogue and amateur sleuth, Daniel Jacobus. It is left up to the begrudging Jacobus, with his old friend, Nathaniel Williams, and a new member of the detective team, Trotsky the bulldog, to unravel the deadly puzzle. As usual, it ends up more than Jacobus bargained for.

Death and Transfiguration

by Gerald Elias

Published 19 June 2012

Vaclav Herza, the last of a dying breed of great but tyrannical conductors, has been music director of Harmonium for forty years. The world famous touring orchestra was created for him when he fled Czechoslovakia for America during the political turmoil in Eastern Europe in 1956. It is the eve of the opening of a dramatic new concert hall designed by Herza himself. It is also the eleventh hour of intense contract negotiations with the musicians that have strained relations within the organization. When the acting concertmaster, Scheherazade O'Brien, is summarily dismissed by the despotic Herza for the permanent concertmaster position, an audition she was poised to win, O'Brien slits her wrists and the orchestra becomes convulsed. Now, blind, cantankerous violin teacher Daniel Jacobus, who had shunned O'Brien's earlier plea for help against Herza's relentless harassment, investigates Herza's dark past not only in Prague, but in Tokyo and New York. With the help of his old friends Nathaniel Williams, Max Furukawa, and Martin Lilburn, he seeks not only revenge but redemption from the guilt of his own past.

Playing with Fire

by Gerald Elias

Published 4 May 2016

The latest Daniel Jacobus mystery holds a mirror to the glittery façade of the concert world, delving into the multimillion-dollar sleight-of-hand of violin dealing . . .

When an anxious phone call from obscure violinmaker Amadeo Borlotti disturbs Daniel Jacobus's Christmas Eve festivities, he and his dear friends Nathaniel and Yumi make light of it. A seemingly humble practitioner of his craft, Borlotti preferred the quiet life in the country away from the limelight. He even found love at an advanced age.

But his larceny, which began as a typographical error in a bill for a violin repair, grew incessantly. In the end he became a helpless captive of his past indiscretions and was consumed by it, and it is up to Jacobus and his team to find out how, and why.

Spring Break

by Gerald Elias

Published 28 April 2017

While teaching a master class at an elite music conservatory, blind violinist and amateur sleuth Daniel Jacobus gives an extra lesson in how to catch a killer.

When the Kinderhoek Conservatory of Music in Upstate New York has a last-minute cancellation for its "Going for Baroque" festival, they call on virtuoso violinist Daniel Jacobus to sit in on panels and teach a master class. While his expertise in musicology is as noteworthy as his roster of former students, the reclusive curmudgeon's brusk manner is a shock to the gentile Kinderhoek community. But not nearly as shocking as murder.

When a renowned faculty member dies of apparently natural causes, Jacobus's finely attuned ear alerts him to the fact that something is terribly amiss. As he roots out false notes and false claims among the students and faculty, he soon discovers that beneath their civil tone is a secondary theme of harassment and deadly corruption.

Murder at the Royal Albert

by Gerald Elias

Published 1 January 2023