Venice

Cassandra Reilly, the translator-sleuth, first appeared in a story in the British anthology Reader, I Murdered Him. "Murder at the International Feminist Book Fair" was a joke, but Cassandra soon took on a life of her own in Gaudi Afternoon, a comic thriller set in Barcelona. Trouble in Transylvania (Hungary and Romania) and The Case of the Orphaned Bassoonists (Venice) soon followed, along with the collection The Death of a Much-Travelled Woman.

THE CASE OF THE ORPHANED BASSOONISTS
Published under the name Barbara Wilson
Seal Press, 2000
ISBN-10: 1580050468
ISBN-13: 978 1580050463

In the third Cassandra Reilly mystery, the translator-sleuth travels to Venice to help her best friend, the bassoonist Nicky Gibbons. Complications ensue, and Cassandra, in the midst of translating Peruvian haiku written in Spanish, is intrigued by a variety of women, as she dodges dead bodies and trades quips with the always fabulously dressed Nicky.

From Kirkus Reviews:
Droll humor, high intelligence, outrageous Edith Sitwell-like wardrobes, and a chance to revel in the best Venice offers, from the synagogues of Ghetto Nuova to the cafes of the back canals.

From Publishers Weekly:
The present-day international classical-music scene meets Vivaldi-era Venice in Wilson's third winning tale featuring translator and amateur detective Cassandra Reilly. The jet-setting lesbian heroine obligingly sets off for Italy to help her friend, bassoonist Nicky Gibbons, who stands accused of stealing a priceless antique bassoon during a symposium on women musicians of Vivaldi's time. Symposium organizer Alfredo Sandretti insists that Nicky stole the valuable bassoon, but whether she did or didn't soon becomes irrelevant, because as Cassandra slyly interviews each of the possible suspects, she learns that they're all harboring their own secrets (or, as she later discovers, are gifted liars). Mousy oboist Anna de Hoog is in town to play in the concert, in spite of her lack of virtuosity; Gunther, a German with a promiscuous mistress, is constantly making frantic calls to his alleged grandmother; and Vivaldi expert Andrew McManus seems more intent on garnering the attention of Sandretti's son, Marco, than anything else. Running concurrently with the stolen instrument story is the more intriguing, yet lamentably not as fully developed, mystery of the orphaned bassoonists of Baroque Venice. While this novel lacks a unifying thread, Wilson nonetheless has marvelously depicted Venice and its history, introducing modern (if nutty) women personalities that should please feminist readers.

From Booklist:
The many moods and shifting colors of Venice come alive in Wilson's masterful third in the Reilly European Trilogy. Cassandra arrives to help her friend, bassoonist Nicola Gibbons, who's been accused of stealing an antique bassoon while attending a conference on women musicians of the Vivaldi era. She arrives at a grand villa to find an odd assortment of conferees, including a Canadian bassoonist/scholar; a strangely drab and untalented Dutch oboist; a couple of tall Nordic baroque bassoonists embroiled in a teutonically torrid affair; and the hosts: the domineering, hot-tempered Alfredo Sandretti and his browbeaten son, Marco, who will do anything—anything?—to please him. Cassandra manages to locate the missing bassoon but finds that a murder by drowning has muddied the waters.