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MUSIC BOX MURDERS, THE
by Larry Karp
Worldwide Mystery, November 2000
300 pages
$5.99
ISBN: 037326366X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Dr. Thomas Purdue collects antique music boxes. Early on the morning after the annual New York Music Box Collector's Society party, he gets a phone call from his friend, music box repairer Charles O'Shacker telling him of the death of fellow wealthy collector, and party host Harry Hardwick. While he's brooding about Harry's death, one of his pickers, Broadway Schwartz phones him and tells him of a music box he saw for sale at an Antiques Market on the upper West Side. The news immediately brings him out of his depression, and he races to buy the box before another collector can get to it. From the description, it's a rare type called a rigid notation box, one Purdue has been coveting for a long time

Thomas hondles with the dealer, and gets him down to $4,500 from $6,000, while trying to find out who sold the box to him. (It could be worth as much as $25,000) During the negotiations, the dealer tells him that Charlie O'Shacker sold him the box. As soon as the deal is concluded, Thomas dashes from the mall to Charlie's to try and discover what was going on. They listen to the all-Mozart program, and Charlie finally convinces Purdue to leave the box with him because the sound is slightly off.

Shackie says the box had belonged to Hardwick and he had never handled it before. Purdue and Schwartz enlist the help of Thomas' estranged wife, Sarah, to try and discover who had really sold the box. Before they can solve this problem, both the dealer and O'Shacker are dead. The police close the case, saying that Charles must have killed the other two and then hanged himself in remorse.

Collectors are peculiar people. Having dealt with them for 30 years, I know. They are usually people who have no life outside of their passion. They will chase something for 20 years and then try to get it for less, even if, as in the example in the first paragraph, the dealer is asking a fraction of the true value, and as Dr. Karp so ably points out, they will even kill for their passion.

There are many strange and wonderful music boxes described in this book, and the way in which they are repaired and cared for. There are also many odd people who are very representative of the collector, and a satisfactory conclusion to the mystery. The only cavil I have is that he finds a treasure on Portobello Road when he goes to London. I haven't found anything real there in the last 20 years.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, December 2001

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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