Five Stars for Deadly Impressions!!

Billionaire Ezekiel Fick is extremely worried. His pride and joy, his granddaughter, Stephanie has been kidnapped. He'll do whatever it takes to get her back. Using his contacts among the elite of the United States, Zeke demands action from everyone!  To the LAPD and private investigator Arnold Blackburn, this seems like an ordinary kidnapping. They all seem to follow the same game plan. This one, however, stops being ordinary when no demands are sent to Zeke. Everyone is contacting their sources to try to find Stephanie. Will it be enough help?

This book surprised me. I felt it was going to be another simple mystery. WOW was I ever wrong. Mr. Johnson leads you subtly and carefully down a path of twists and turns. The intrigue and suspense is off the charts.  While reading this book, I was certain I knew who dun-nit only to be proven wrong over and over. The writing style is terrific. The characters well defined and easy to understand. I also loved the history tie-in. This book is an easy read and perfect to curl up with. I know you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

I gave this one 5 cheers out of 5 because of the twisted ending it has.

Reposted from Have You Heard Book Reviews

Mysteries Galore Reviews The Devil's Violin

Reviewed by Dianne Woodman

The Devil’s Violin begins with an act from the past that sets in motion an unexpected chain of events tying all the players involved in the story together. Niccolo Paganini, a world famous violinist termed by many as the Devil because of his extraordinary skills, is on his deathbed in Italy. Niccolo has promised his cherished violin to the mayor of Genoa so that it can be put on display in the museum. However, he wants the 1742 Guarneri to remain in the family, so he hides it along with secret documents that are inside the case under the floorboards in his apartment and leaves an exquisitely crafted forgery of the instrument for the museum. He plans to tell his son where the real violin is hidden, but dies without revealing his secret.

The story then moves forward to the present day in Los Angeles. Max Pendleton, a Hollywood film producer, hires two top-notch thieves to steal the violin from the museum. Plans for keeping the heist under wraps go slightly awry when a violinist in Italy is found with his throat cut, and the man fleeing the scene is described as a man dressed all in black. This act triggers a manhunt led by Special FBI Agent Chris Clarke for the man in black, since the MO at the murder scene is consistent with a contract killer who has eluded the FBI for years.

Art Johnson has artfully integrated believable and relatable characters into a story filled with violin history, secret societies, deception, intrigue, greed, and non-stop action that keeps the reader invested in the outcome of the story. The tension builds throughout the novel culminating in a nail-biting confrontation in Italy between the players who have a vested interest in locating the violin. There are surprising twists and turns in the plot that makes for an engrossing mystery thriller. The few minor grammatical mistakes do not detract in any way from the overall enjoyment of the story.

The author has left it open for this book to be the beginning of a highly entertaining and captivating series. There are unanswered questions involving a couple of the key players who assisted the FBI, and Special FBI Agent Chris Clarke has a new case to solve.

Reposted from Mysteries Galore

Five Star Review on Tome Tender for The Devil's Violin

 "Mr. Johnson’s gift for storytelling with a taut, crisp style is magnetic."

 
My Review:
The Devil's Violin by Art Johnson
My Rating:  5 Stars

Travel across continents with this dark and edgy mystery thriller where the main character is an almost priceless missing violin whose case is rumored to hold unbelievable secrets. The Devil’s Violin by Art Johnson is a mesmerizing journey into the world of priceless antiquities, greed and deceit. Where possession of these papers means everything and the means to that possession has no rules.

This prized violin is said to have been the very one that was played by the man called the Devil, as his ability to play was unearthly. Dark and mysterious, twisted and deadly, two FBI agents follow the bread crumbs they gather in a trans-global race to gain the prize. Among those caught in this twisted web are a master violin forger, a beautiful, yet mysterious woman, a professional thief and, the Man in Black. Is it possible that these hidden papers could be of interest to the clandestine Illuminati, too?

Art Johnson had me from the title! I saw the word “violin” and knew I had to read this. Add the amazing journey to the finish, the history of the violin and the possible contents of these papers, as well as the furious pace that feeds small pieces of the puzzle, timed perfectly and I could not put this down!

Mr. Johnson’s gift for storytelling with a taut, crisp style is magnetic. A striking plot that is populated by diverse characters that feel flawed and real, the excitement of the chase, make The Devil’s Violin more than a simple mystery. He manages to turn this into his own concert of words.

 
Synopsis:

The world’s most prized violin becomes the centerpiece of intrigue as FBI Special Investigator Chris Clarke and his partner Carlos “Chubbs” Gonzales weave their way through a maze containing a notorious assassin, Illuminati, secret documents, a master violin forger and his deceptive and charismatic daughter, a Hollywood film producer and one of L.A.’s finest and most neurotic sneak-thieves.

The chase across two continents resolves in an art gallery in the South of France for a shocker of an ending.

FBI Special Investigator Chris Clarke doesn’t like “…anything or anyone” in his way while working a case. In his seventeen years with the Bureau, he has dealt with everything from retrieving stolen works of art to tackling some of the world’s biggest scumbags.

With his diverse background of art evaluation and Desert Storm duty, Chris Clarke is ready for all comers. Only one fugitive haunts his thoughts: the notorious and ruthless assassin known only as “The Man in Black," whose trail of contract killings had never led law enforcement to anything but a figure lurking in the shadows.

One morning in August 2010, the “man in black” suddenly popped up, seen by witnesses in Cremona, Italy to have been in the area where a young violinist was found dead with his throat cut. Chris Clarke and Gonzales head off to Europe to track down the assassin while attempting to decode the mystery that lies behind the motive.

Weeks before, Hollywood movie-mogul Max Pendleton, who loves fine works of art, no matter how they are acquired, hires veteran sneak-thief Gus Edward Happy to fly to Europe and steal the most valuable violin in existence—the famed violin coveted by the Jimi Hendrix of the nineteenth century, Niccolo Paganini--thought to be in league with the devil because his genius was unexplainable in earthly terms.

Through a tangled web involving Illuminati, secret documents in the possession of Paganini at his death, a master violin forger and his deceptive daughter, thieves, and assassins, Clarke faces the challenge of his career as he and his partner Gonzales move across Italy to the South of France where pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place with the Devil’s Violin center stage, leading to a rapid-fire conclusion.

The Devil’s Violin Reviewed By Steve Moore of Bookpleasures

I’ll have to admit that this pleasant but rough gem about musical history, violin making, and suspense first attracted my attention because of the author’s background. I’d not heard of Art Johnson before (and I’m a fan of many musical genres, from classical to jazz and pop), but I figured that a person who’s toured with artists like Lena Horne, Barbra Streisand, and Luciano Pavarotti; won a Grammy and Academy Award; and recorded eight CDs knows enough about music and music history to make the story interesting.

The Devil of the title is Paganini. Classical music fans know him as the composer of those devilish pieces for violin only playable by him. Like Einstein’s General Theory, though, others have managed to understand and dominate the pieces after Paganini composed them, although they still remain the quintessential challenge for violinists. But, again referring to the title, this story’s main character isn’t Paganini’s opus but his violin—the authentic one. That there existed a fake, ordered by the Devil himself, complicates the search for the real one that is the theme of this story. That only the real one’s case contains something secret hidden inside adds more to the mystery.

This novel reminded me of the Preston and Child tour de force, Brimstone, which also contains a theme about violins and violin making. I like Paganini’s violin better, and I enjoyed Mr. Johnson’s walk down musicology lane more, but I found Mr. Johnson’s plot lacking—there’s just not enough tension. The characters are also a bit two-dimensional, there are too many of them (e.g. numerous FBI agents traipsing around Europe), and the author seems to think every man must have his woman. The author manages settings and dialogue very well, though, yet the reader is left dangling in the denouement (this often means the author is planning a sequel). There are also a few copy-editing issues I caught on my second read.

Part of the unresolved mystery corresponds to the secret contents of the violin case and two main characters. I don’t risk a spoiler because I never understood what was going on with them. The parts of the book associated with the secret contents seemed almost superfluous. Moreover, the reader never is told the reason behind the search for the violin beyond those secret contents.

I liked the daughter of the violin maker and her accomplice, a petty snatch-and-grab thief who is tamed by the daughter. Maybe we’ll hear more about them in a sequel? Their role in the denouement ends satisfactorily enough to make this novel a stand-alone. Everything else fails in this respect, so maybe there are content-editing issues too.

A pleasant story that doesn’t quite make it, this book is worth a read, if only for the musical history. I’ll look for more stories from this writer. He has an unusual background that allowed him to create something different.

Steve Moore

Reviewer Steve Moore: Steve is a full-time writer and ex-scientist. Besides his many technical publications, he has written six sci-fi thrillers (one a novel for young adults), many short stories, and frequent comments on writing and the digital revolution in publishing. His interests also include physics, mathematics, genetics, robotics, forensics, and scientific ethics. Follow Here for his WEBSITE.

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