Unterhaltsame Lektüre, fantasievoll und vermutlich weit von jeder Realität. Aber eine nette Geschenkidee für Mozartfans.

"The Mozart Conspiracy" just wasn't my cup of tea. I found it too predictable and a bit difficult to get through due to how boring I found it to be overall.

An historical mystery set in 18th Century Vienna. Didn't realise it was a YA novel which explains its young heroine but I found it a fast, entertaining Baroque story. Good escapist stuff.

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I had not realised that this was a sequel when I requested the title as it was not made clear in the description. As I have not read the first instalment I do not feel capable of reviewing the second and I do not think it would benefit you either if I did review it without the wider context. I am sorry for the inconvenience. I have given a middle rating to try to remain neutral.

I very much enjoyed this book. I loved the fact that Theresa is living a double life. She has to dress as a man to play the violin in any ensembles throughout Paris. One night while she is in disguise, she witnesses a man being attacked and becomes entangled in the mystery behind his death, as it reminds her of her father's murder 2 years earlier.

I enjoy young adult historical fiction and read it whenever I can. This novel was just...ok. The characters fell flat for me, the mystery didn't intrigue, and I found myself skimming. But the author does good research and I feel she has potential.

i really enjoyed reading this book, I liked the duality of the main character and the mystery in the book. Overall I really would love to read more from the author.

I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did, I found the plot interesting but just couldn't get into the story.

"The Mozart Conspiracy" continues the story of teen-aged Rezia Schurman, begun in "The Musician's Daughter." Rezia leads a double life: in order to engage her musical talents as an accomplished violinist, she disguises herself as a boy. She witnesses a murder as she walks home from a performance. Rezia tries to get help in solving the mystery, meets with resistance, and then decides to pursue the solution on her own. The story spins out with secret societies, music librarians, wealthy people, births and deaths, kidnappings, a scary wild animal, and pursuits through dark alleyways. Rezia constantly involves herself in dangerous situations, as she seeks the solution to the mystery, ultimately discovering that things and people are often not as they seem.

The plot moves along rapidly and engages the reader throughout the book with its many twists and turns. There are quite a few characters, yet they are described well enough to allow readers to keep them straight. I liked the setting of the Vienna music scene, as well as the descriptions of the secret societies and their rituals. Rezia is certainly a daring young lady, and her exploits are not always quite believable. However, this historical novel should prove to be a rollicking good read for lovers of historical mysteries as well as music. Author notes at the end provide additional insights into the historical aspects of the story.

I received this book from the publisher and from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

The Mozart Conspiracy turned out to be the second episode in a series. I thought it was a stand=alone novel, so I haven't read the first episode.
On the whole it is no problem to start with this book but there are more then a few references to the previous book.
Theresa (Rezia) is a girl living in Vienna who during the evenings plays the violin in a couple of orchestras dressed up as a boy because in that time it was forbidden for females to play in an orchestra. The book focusses a lot on gender inequality and anti-Semitism in 18th century Vienna.

Going home from on of her concerts she sees a musician being attacked and tries to come to his aid but seems to be too late because the only thing he can whisper is Mozart.
This is the start of a rather confusing search for his attacker and leads to several complicated conspiracy theories.

I enjoyed the setting in 18th century Vienna and it was a pleasant enough read but I found the plot rather confusing at times, probably because the main character wasn't too sure about what happened around her. I kept feeling that the book could have been better with a somewhat clearer plot.

Therefore 3 stars, would have been 4 if the plot had been better developed. It does have potential.

I want to thank Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

Fun, fast, entertaining read! The Mozart Conspiracy has everything I love reading: an interesting, intelligent young protagonist (and she's female!) who doesn't let herself be fobbed off by those who don't take her seriously, and a perplexing mystery peopled with real characters from history.

Theresa "Rezia" Schurman is a 17 year old violinist who doesn't fit into the normal expectations of a respectable family. She was taught to play the violin by her father (who died in a previous book) and now the Shurman family is struggling. So Rezia disguises herself as a young man and plays as a contract player in any orchestra she can get work in. During the day she tutors the children of wealthy families, and teaches them how to play the violin. It's not just women who are not allowed to play an instrument in public, neither are Jews, and while the laws are changing this makes the world that Theresa lives in all the more challenging as she struggles to feed her family. And of course her well bred mama does not approve, and she doesn't even know the half of what Theresa is up to.

One night on the way home from rehearsal, Theresa witnesses an attack on another musician. As the victim dies in her arms, he whispers "Mozart". What does that mean? Can Mozart have had a man in this man's death? And who is this victim who's murder she's seen? Or has she really seen a murder? When she reports what she saw to authorities (in her male guise) they don't believe her, especially when she takes them to the body only to find that it is no longer there. But Theresa persists in spite of the lack of help and the mounting obstacles to finding out the truth.

As the mozart conspiracy spins out the threads of what Theresa witnessed that night, it begins to look like even those at the highest level of society may be involved. And who can be believed? Can Theresa even trust her own eyes? The aptly named Mozart Conspiracy grabs your attention with its lively heroine, fast past, interesting characters and maze like mystery. Just pick it up and read it!

The Mozart Conspiracy by Susanne Dunlap presents an interesting and well-written account of the life of a Viennese girl during the historical time. The gripping description of a young girl who comes across a murder on her way home presents exceptional events experienced by Therese Schurman. Therese who acts like a boy and girl attempts to gain sufficient income as a violinist. Her life changed with becoming entangled in a murder investigation. This murder seemed a lot more complex than thought and the help from Captain Von Bauer she attempts to solve this complex event.

The storyline presents excellent reading material to individuals who enjoy the historical landscapes of artists and musicians during the Mozart music period. The book presents well-written events that keep the reader's interest and wondering what the next chapter may bring.

The relationships between the different characters present a world of intrigue, relationship building, investigations and discovery of unknown events. I recommend this book to persons who love historical novels with an investigative flair.

Theresa Schurman leads a double life. Theresa is a respectable young lady of Vienna but she is also Thomas who plays the violin. Since women are not allowed to play she has had to be deceptive. Her mother is widowed and so they need the money that Rezia makes teaching and playing in small orchestras. She is on her way home as Thomas one night when she sees a man being stabbed/ When she goes back later he has disappeared. The only thing he said to her was, "Mozart". She does not know what to make of this but just can't leave it alone.. The story unfolds with the involvement of the Jewish musicians, Freemasons, the Prince and the local gypsies. There is a conspiracy happening and she knows not what or who is involved.

This is volume two in an amateur detective series. I did not read volume one, which is titled The Musician's Daughter. I don't recall ever seeing volume one, but if I had, I would have rejected it for the precise reason that I refuse to read any novel that subjugates a woman to the position of being someone else's "thing": musician's daughter, time-traveler's wife, and so on. It makes the woman a piece of property rather than an actor in her own right and I'm not in favor of such titles.

I'm not a fan of the amateur detective story in general, for that matter, but this title appealed to me because it was set in Austria and in the time of Mozart. I had hoped it would be different from the usual amateur detective story, but the problem with it is that in the end, it was not at all different. In fact, it was exactly the same: first person, featuring a detective with a quirk, and in trying to add that quirk to make her detective different from the hoard of amateur detective stories that now flood bookstores, the author made her detective precisely the same as all the others: first person voice with a quirk!

For me, first person is worst person because it makes the main protagonist so annoying. It's always about him or her. In the words of George Harrison, "I, me, mine, I, me, mine, I, me, mine." It's tedious to read such a self-centered book like that, which is why I recently cleansed my print library of every such book. I'm in process of doing the same with my ebooks. It's very limiting to write this way because nothing can happen unless the main character is there to witness it. Everything else comes from hearsay and is therefore suspect. It's irritating. As it happens this particular one wasn't too bad to begin with, but over the time I read it, it became more annoying.

There was an element of racism in the story too. The racism existed in the time period (as it does today) against the Jewish people, and against the Romany people. This was a fact of history, but because the author harped on it so much, it distracted from the detective's story. In trying to make her seem completely accepting of all people, it made her stand out like a sore thumb, when in fact, the likelihood was that pretty much everyone back then was racist.

Not having read book one in this series, perhaps I missed where Theresa started out prejudiced and learned acceptance over the course of the first volume, or maybe she didn't, but it felt odd that she was so open. It was unrealistic. It would have felt more real to me had she harbored the same prejudices most everyone had back then, and was learning to work around them.

The predictable detective's quirk in this series is that she loves to play the violin, but we're told that she could not play in orchestras because women were not allowed in that era, so she had to disguise herself as a man to play. The thing is that although women were not allowed in men's orchestras (the first woman in a male orchestra was not recorded until the early twentieth century), they were allowed to play in all-female orchestras, but this gets no mention in this novel. So in a sense this was an artificial problem.

Ironically, it became a real problem for this story because then the story became about her problems rather than about solving a murder, which to me was the whole point of the story. The murder became secondary to the soap opera of Theresa's activities, and it was boring because her activities were always the same: dress as a guy, sneak around, play in an orchestra, risk being discovered, sneak back home, change back to female attire. This was repeated over and over and it became tedious to read so often.

Worse than this though was the problem of Theresa's failure to honestly report the crime. Yes, she reported that she had witnessed a man being murdered, but she didn't tell the whole story, and then the body disappeared. Repeatedly she refused to give details to those who wished to help her when she had no valid reason for refusing to share her information, and she continued to investigate the murder, without us being offered any real motive for her to do so.

She did not know the murdered man; indeed, for a while she had no idea even of his name, but when she discovered his name she didn't report this back to the police to whom she'd made her initial report. In short, as is often the case in amateur detective stories, the detective actively withholds information from the police for no good reason, and in doing so is hampering a police inquiry and perverting the curse of justice! It makes no sense, but it does explain why amateur detectives in these stories so routinely beat the police in solving the mysteries! This author isn't the only one who does this; even luminaries like Agatha Christie had their detectives, like Poirot, actively conceal things from the police. I'd dearly love to read a realistic detective story where the detective is arrested and thrown into jail for hampering the police investigation! LOL!

But I digress! Anyways, she'd spoken to the murdered guy before he died (of course!), but instead of trying to recover information from him about who had done this to him, or what motive there might have been, or even ask the guy's name, she just crouched there with him, and all she got was one word, 'Mozart' - or at least something that sounded like Mozart. This was unrealistic and far too invented to sound real.

Experience available to us all these days via news stories, has shown that overwhelmingly, when people are dying or expecting to die, they're going to say something about a loved one: "Tell my wife I love her" or something along those lines. We do not routinely hear of dying people uttering mysterious words or phrases. It's not realistic and in this case the mystery word was so artlessly injected into the story that it sounded quite ridiculous. It took me out of the suspension of disbelief because it felt like such an artificially-created mystery where there was no realistic reason for one, instead of having the mystery develop organically.

The novel is set in Austria, the land of Mozart, but we get no German (or Bavarian) words interjected into the story to create atmosphere. Bizarrely, the word 'madame' is used frequently instead of frau or fräulein. It made zero sense. There's nothing more tedious in a story than putting in a foreign word or phrase and immediately pedantically following it with the English translation, even where such translation isn't at all necessary, but in this case, it would not have hurt, once in a while, to use a German word to describe something where it's obvious what the thing is.

Instead, we got puns that made sense in English, but would not have made any sense in German, such as when a woman is talking of finding a treat for a young girl and she says, "...let's see if I can find some sweets here for the sweet." In English that makes sense, but the Austrian word meaning 'sweets' is 'nachtisch' which sounds nothing like 'süß' (pronounced rather like Zeus and meaning sweet as in 'nice' or 'sweetheart'). In German, the pun doesn't work the way it works in English. It's like the author forgot where the story was set.

So, for these reasons and similar ones I've not mentioned, I quit reading this around the forty-percent mark. It was doing nothing for me and the story appeared to have stagnated, so I lost all interest in it and in the main character, who had started coming off as rather clueless to me. I wish the author all the best in her career, but I cannot commend this novel based on my experience of it.

The Mozart Conspiracy
Susanne Dunlap

This young adult historical mystery is well written and delightful to read. Seventeen year old Rezia (Theresa Schurman) is a very talented violinist and amateur sleuth. She is of the upper class and one would think that, living in Vienna Austria during the height of the Austro-Hungarian empire, would have little to complain about. But she is a girl/woman ahead of her time. As talented as she is the 18th century Viennese culture defines the role of women very completely, prohibiting females from playing with the official orchestras. As strong willed as she is, however, she resorts to the rather bold, and dangerous tactic of disguising herself as a young man both to hide her true identity in the larger orchestras and to avail herself of the broader scope of activities of men in the world at large.

Even her social situation is precarious. Her father had passed away as a result of a scandal requiring her to use her musical talents to help support her mother and two siblings, one just a toddler.

An incident occurs which complicates her life even more and places her in real physical danger as well. She witnesses what appears to be a murder. Just the attempt to report this assault to the authorities requires her to assume her male persona in order to be taken seriously.

The mystery around which this story revolves involves a plot on the life of the Emperor. A sub-plot includes the attempt of Rezia to assist Mozart in presenting a symphony in Vienna over the objections of a powerful antagonist who attempts to undermine Mozart at every turn.

The troubles and complexities just continue to escalate from that point. Her circle of acquaintances include a group of Romany (Gypsies) with whom she is very close, the brilliant composer Mozart, and even the Emperor of Austria himself.

While this was a ‘fun’ read and worth the interested readers time it is rather one dimensional. There are many characters but the reader rarely glimpses beyond the facade. The dialogue borders on the trivial with more effort placed on describing apparel than on personalities and motivations.

In Vienna in the time of Mozart, one girl will defy societal norms for the sake of the music she loves and the investigation she can't let go.

By day, Theresa Schurman is a good Viennese girl living with her mother, little sister, and the family's housekeeper. The daughter of a famous musician who taught her to play before his death, she teaches violin to several girls from prominent families. However, her teaching alone does not make enough to support her family; so she supplements her income by disguising herself as a boy to play in orchestras all over the city by night. It is on her way home from one of these evening events that she witnesses a crime being committed against a fellow musician. When she reports what she's seen, however, the police are less than helpful; and she finds herself investigating on her own. What she uncovers will both shock her and put her in more danger than she knows how to handle. So why won't the police help her, what has she stumbled into, and how on Earth is the famous composer Mozart involved?

I really enjoyed this book. Theresa is a spunky young woman living at a time when females did not have a lot of opportunities and were certainly not thought fit to participate in Vienna's lively music scene. But Theresa defies all that to become Thomas at night and to make music with some of the greatest composers of the day. The factual information woven throughout about classical music is a delight, and though the mystery part of the story is fictional, much of the background is not. The mystery itself is complex and confusing, but confusing in a good way. It kept me guessing the entire time, and even at its conclusion, I had to take a minute to digest everything and put the pieces all together. This is the first book I've read in this series, and it has done its job in convincing me that I definitely want to read more.

bottom line: If you like historical mysteries, this one is fantastic. Its against the backdrop of Vienna in the time of some of the greatest classical musicians ever, and music is certainly a major theme throughout. The characters are compelling and the plot is fast-paced. It's a fun read that is sure to have you wanting to check out the rest of the series.

By day Theresa was a respectable lady teaching violin. By night she takes after her father by playing in an orchestra.

But this is the 18th Century. Where women are not allowed to participate in events like the Orchestra unless they are watching!

The Mozart Conspiracy seemed an interesting plot and it was. It dealt with a few issues - gender and others.

However this booked moved too slow for me. It became a bit boring.
But if yo can persevere please do. The writing and plot are easy to read.

Firstly, I did not know this book was a sequel until after I read it. However, it still made sense and was quite interesting. I thought the writing was quite good and it was easy to follow, but not so easy that it became boring. I learned a lot about Vienna and it's history which was really cool. All around, a fascinating read.

Despite the slow start, I think that The Mozart Conspiracy is an interesting, thought-provoking novel. It deals with issues such as anti-Semitism, misogyny, and classism. At first, I wasn’t aware that this was a sequel because it’s more than capable of standing on its own. I found it to be plot-driven more than anything which is fine. It’s perfect for fans of music and historical fiction. I thought that young Theresa Schurman was an interesting character to follow. I wasn’t expecting her to be as young as she is, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if she was a bit older but her age wasn’t too distracting.

I am not that interested in mysteries, but I enjoyed this one. The twists were appropriate and engaging. The setting and plot development were strong. I look forward to what comes next.

The Mozart Conspiracy by Susanne Dunlap is the sequel to a YA historical mystery that I really liked called The Musician's Daughter in which fictional fifteen year old violinist Theresa Schurman investigated her father's death in 18th century Vienna. I wasn't aware that there was a sequel when The Mozart Conspiracy was originally published in 2010. I only found out about it now because the new Kindle edition is available on Net Galley. I snapped up the free digital review copy, and decided to read this mystery during Thanksgiving week because I felt thankful for it.

The first thing that readers considering a sequel generally want to know is whether it can stand alone. My answer is that you can start with The Mozart Conspiracy, but why would you want to do that? The Musician's Daughter is wonderful.

As my readers will know, women in the 18th century who had careers in the arts were rebelling against established conventions. Theresa was fortunate in having a violinist father who taught her and believed in her gift. This is believable because some prominent historical women in the arts and sciences of earlier eras were trained by their fathers. The ancient mathematician Hypatia and the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi spring to mind as examples. Theresa was even more fortunate in having the composer Joseph Haydn as her godfather and mentor. He is a significant character in The Musician's Daughter.

A Romani woman named Mirela played an important role in both the books that center on Theresa. Theresa relied on Mirela's insight and assistance. Theresa also had connections to Romani musicians that Haydn knew. (I found a section of the Wikipedia article on Haydn and Folk Music that deals with Haydn's relationship with the Romani and their influence on his music for those who are interested in this subject.)

Another female character in The Mozart Conspiracy that I wanted to bring up in this review was Constanze Weber, who later married Mozart. I've seen Constanze portrayed as self-centered, greedy and manipulative elsewhere. Dunlap shows her in a much more positive light. It seemed possible that Theresa and Constanze could become friends in the future.

The Theresa Schurman mysteries contain themes that are relevant to me. In The Mozart Conspiracy gender inequality and anti-semitism were the ones that I found most noteworthy. I felt Theresa's distress when she was viewed as anti-semitic by some of the Jewish characters.

The mystery aspect of the book was handled very suspensefully. The conspiracy referred to in the title of the novel remained unclear until the final reveal. Until then, it was difficult for Theresa to discover whodunit since it transpired that she couldn't be entirely certain about what was done.

Although I didn't like The Mozart Conspiracy nearly as much as The Musician's Daughter, I did enjoy reading it. Yet one area of disappointment was the absence of Haydn. If there is a third book in this series, I'd love to see Haydn resume his mentor role in Theresa's life.