The Dark Maestro

From the author of The Violin Conspiracy and Symphony of Secrets comes a mesmerizing page-turner about a young Black musical virtuoso at the peak of his career who’s forced into hiding when his family runs afoul of a ruthless international cartel—and uses his music to fight back.

–StoryGraph

MY REVIEW

Guys. This book was made to be on my TBR. A Black prodigy cellist, who loves comic books and it’s a mystery/thriller? Clearly, CLEARLY I was always meant to have this on my shelves. Curtis has a supportive family who have his back and encourage him on his beautiful musical path and give him the best life they can. I absolutely adored the family dynamics and they weren’t perfect, not by far, but there was the love there and it was so evident it just sorted lifted off the pages and wrapped me up in a hug lol, which is pretty amazing considering this is really in a lot of ways a thriller/mystery.

They had finally all set on paths they hoped for their future, happy and successful and then it all comes crashing down as Zippy’s caught out by the FBI they want him to give evidence against his boss and that doesn’t go quite as planned, sending his mother, his wife and his son, Curtis, into WITSEC (Witness protection).

And of course that isn’t quite what they were expecting in their lives. All they want is to take control of their lives. Curtis is the most devastated in many ways, his career of a soloist is out the window and playing cello is now an isolated thing and he misses the joy of playing for an audience and with others. But when music is that deeply rooted in you, you can’t drop it.

What Curtis does find solace in comes as a surprise and in the form of a hero that he needs; The Dark Maestro, a call back to his childhood. The Dark Maestro is so cool and I would 1000% buy those comics and have all the merch and soundtracks.

I would have honestly given this five stars but the pacing was off enough that I felt the build up lasted too long for the takeaway at the end. It felt almost rushed because of that and I didn’t want that after so much lead up. Especially with how it ends. I loved that epilogue so much and I do think the ending was perfect.

4/5 Huge cups of coffee though and you can bet I will read Slocumb’s previous books and will be keeping an eye out for his next one! Thanks so much to the publisher for sending me a requested copy of this in exchange for my honest review.