Prima Donna at Large

By Barbara Paul

The Metropolitan Opera has no time for illness. So when its principal baritone succumbs to a head cold on the eve of Carmen, house diva Geraldine Farrar doesn't hesitate to recommend a replacement: the hungry young American Jimmy Freeman. He's raw, talented, and desperately in love with her – something she doesn't mind at all. But when Freeman is passed over in favor of Philippe Duchon, a legendary baritone fleeing World War I, the young man is shattered, and the stage is set for tragedy. A throat spray laced with ammonia destroys Duchon's vocal chords, finishing his career once and for all. But who poisoned his spray? While everyone in the company loathed Duchon, Freeman and Farrar are the obvious suspects. To clear their names, the thoroughly modern prima donna who brought flapper-style to the Metropolitan stage will kick up her heels and get to work.

Prima Donna at Large is the 2nd book in the Opera Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781786690401

Barbara Paul

Barbara Paul is the author of numerous science fiction and mystery novels, including Full Frontal Murder, Fare Play, and The Apostrophe Thief. 

Reviews for Prima Donna at Large

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second in a set of three books set in the Metropolitan Opera in the "Golden Age" around the beginning of the 20th Century. I never got a hold of the first book, A Cadenza for Caruso, but I didn't feel I missed anything by it--this can stand alone. This was so fun to read I'm tempted to give it full marks really--it was one that was a pleasure from beginning to end, even if it's not a standout stylistically or as a whodunnit. In those respects it's quite ordinary, and it wouldn't occur to me to list Paul's Opera Mysteries as the best of mystery fiction. I'm sure a great deal of the reason I love it so much is that I am an Opera fan, and can't help but be greatly entertained by a picture of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City circa 1915, as told by American diva Geraldine Farrar and featuring as characters the great conductor Toscanini and singer Enrico Caruso. I loved "watching" golden age performances of Carmen and Tosca.Farrar as depicted here is larger than life--witty, funny, flirtatious, outrageously egotistical even if good-hearted. A blurb from the New York Times Book Review inside avers that "if you think the portrait of Farrar is exaggerated, it isn't. She was exactly as depicted here." Well, she's great, gossipy company as she and Caruso try to untangle the murder of an obnoxious baritone.