Readers could accept Enrico Caruso as a detective once, just for the
fun of the story. But I didn't think I could get away with it a second
time. So I talked it over with Tom Dunne, my editor at St. Martin's, and
suggested using the same setting and recurring characters but having a
different singer act as detective in the next book. This time out it was
to be soprano Geraldine Farrar.
Farrar was a wonder. She didn't have the greatest voice in that pantheon
of great voices, but her musicianship was superb. What's more, she was daring and
adventurous, never afraid to try new things. In short, she would make a
perfect detective. Farrar was beautiful and stylish as well; she had a
devoted contingent of fans, young women in their late teens and early
twenties who were known as Gerryflappers. Having your own army of
Gerryflappers could be very handy to an amateur detective.
It's a truism in publishing that the middle book of a trilogy is always
the weakest, as it serves as a bridge between two end points. But not in
this case. According to just about everybody's opinion, including my own,
Prima Donna at Large is the best of the three opera mysteries.
It didn't start out
that way. I wrote about seventy pages and then
stopped. It was...okay. But it didn't sing! And when you're writing
about opera, your book had dang well better sing. I'd started off
writing in the third person, the same point of view I'd used in A
Cadenza for Caruso; but then I thought about switching to first-person
narrative, letting Farrar tell the story herself. I hadn't gone more
than two pages before I knew I had the right voice.
The story takes place in 1915, during a tense time when America had not
yet joined in on World War I. The Met snaps up a renowned French baritone
who is fleeing the struggle in Europe; but the baritone proceeds to make
enemies of everyone with whom he comes in contact. Eventually, one of
his enemies eliminates him. Caruso, warned by the police not to meddle
this time, talks Farrar into investigating. She's reluctant at
first...but once she gets going, she's unstoppable.
A rather wonderful thing happened right after this book was first
published. I started receiving letters from quite elderly women. One
was in her nineties and had to get her niece to write for her. So who
were all these old ladies who were suddenly writing to me?
They were the Gerryflappers. My book had taken them back to an exciting
time in their lives, and they wanted to let me know that. And they all
had stories to tell. "I was there the night Farrar and Caruso got into
a fight during the last act of Carmen" and "I couldn't believe my
eyes when Gerry dropped her blouse in Zaza," and so on. All these
reminiscences, from women who'd actually been a part of it.
What a high!