Mae­stro John Gard­ner
Grand Cen­tral Pub­lish­ing 1995World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Louis Pas­sau, at age ninety, is the world’s most-accomplished and best-loved orches­tral con­duc­tor. Thus, it is no sur­prise when a con­cert in cel­e­bra­tion of his birth­day sells out in min­utes. But, some­thing else is dri­ving pub­lic inter­est as well: the immi­nent release of a book which claims to link Pas­sau to the Nazis dur­ing World War II. This rev­e­la­tion, along with some clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion about the mae­stro, draws the inter­est of Amer­i­can and British intel­li­gence agencies.

Pas­sau is will­ingly taken into cus­tody fol­low­ing the cel­e­bra­tory con­cert, but then two attempts on his life are made in rapid suc­ces­sion. Semi-retired British agent Her­bie Kruger man­ages to almost single-handedly save Pas­sau in the sec­ond and more sophis­ti­cated attempt. In order to get the con­duc­tor out of harm’s way (and ensure that the British SIS gets the infor­ma­tion it wants with­out CIA, FBI, or NSA med­dling), Kruger squir­rels him away with the help of some old friends.

With some coax­ing, Pas­sau agrees to tell Kruger what he wants to know. But, there’s a catch: the con­duc­tor is only will­ing to tell the entire story of his life, in order. Thus, the rel­e­vant bits will be told in their proper places, sur­rounded by the con­text Pas­sau con­sid­ers indis­pen­si­ble for under­stand­ing his actions. What fol­lows is a long and com­pli­cated tale with more twists, illicit deal­ings, and intrigue than the intel­li­gence agen­cies (or gos­sip colum­nists, for that mat­ter) had guessed.

As Kruger lis­tens to Passau’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, he fig­ures out that he and the mae­stro are con­nected in some unex­pected ways — and that Pas­sau isn’t exactly telling the whole truth. Through­out this whole process, the two must also stay one step ahead of both the com­pet­ing intel­li­gence agen­cies and Passau’s would-be assas­sins.
I found Mae­stro to be a fairly enjoy­able read. It’s rare that clas­si­cal music is fea­tured in a work of fic­tion — espe­cially a spy novel. It’s evi­dent that John Gard­ner has a pretty exten­sive knowl­edge of the sub­ject. My only real com­plaint about the book is Gardner’s pen­chant for name-dropping within Louis Passau’s life story. He ties the con­duc­tor to so many real-life peo­ple of all sorts that the tale strains credibility.