Greylock by Paula Cappa

Amazon Digital Services

ASIN: B0168XVNZS

Available: Kindle edition

Alexei Georg is in an uncomfortable situation: the brilliant and difficult sonata he has claimed as his original work was composed by someone else, name unknown. The sonata, titled October, has won him awards and may now qualify him for a grant to travel to the White Sea in Russia to record the songs of beluga whales so he can write a symphony based on their sounds , which he will be given time to write in the isolated wildlife refuge of Mount Greylock. Standing in the way of his goal are a lack of confidence that reveals itself in mediocre public performances of any other piece of music, and his vindictive wife, Carole Anne, who threatens to reveal the secret to the awards committee when he leaves her. An affair, a conspiracy with his mentor to prevent Carole Anne from revealing his secret, a jealous cousin, and a serial killer on the loose, all complicate events as Alexei attempts to escape to Russia to hear the belugas. All this would be more than enough to stand alone as a mystery, and Cappa writes that she was influenced heavily by Philip Marlowe, but the real story is the story of the music, and what Alexei is willing to sacrifice in order to rise to musical fame. The trope of a deal with dark forces for fame and glory, particularly in the musical world, is fairly common, but Cappa transforms it. Her vivid descriptions overtake the imagination, and at times, especially in her depictions of nature, have an actual physical impact on the reader. Cappa’s setting of a small boat in the White Sea was original and well executed, with plenty of shivers, bringing the supernatural to the forefront, and her prose in describing the beluga whales and the ocean voyage flowed beautifully.

Cappa’s descriptive powers aren’t limited to nature, either. It is really difficult to write a good sex scene without cliches or purple prose, but Cappa completely avoids these traps in writing about Alexei and his love interest, Lia.  Both of them have agency and show respect to each other, and Cappa writes their casual relationship respectfully as well. It’s great to see this kind of depiction of a modern affair written so skillfully. The story is frustrating on some levels, though. First, none of the characters are particularly likable or sympathetic. Mostly, they are self-centered and manipulative. While Alexei and his love interest, Lia, are well developed, Carole Anne is a caricature, and the police detective on the case of the serial killer is seen only perfunctorily, through the eyes of Alexei and his cousin, who view her with contempt. It’s also difficult to understand the motivations of many of the characters. For instance, Lia, who has known Alexei only casually in the past, chooses to stick with him after she’s threatened at work by Carole Anne, and decides to drive hours to visit him at the isolated Mount Greylock after multiple warnings that he is the primary suspect in the serial killer murders. Finally, I feel that the two storylines, of the more prosaic serial killer murders and the Gothic “deal with dark forces”, could both be stronger as stand alone stories. In particular, the supernatural story left a lot of questions hanging.

Despite any of the issues I had with Greylock, its descriptive powers, insight into both the power of music and the power of nature, and Cappa’s original treatment of what can be a fairly tired theme, aren’t noticeable once the reader is into the flow of the story, and it is well worth the time of any reader who wants to be swept away into an atmosphere where nature, humanity, and the supernatural combine to create both sublime terror and beauty. Recommended.