After hearing someone on Book Riot say that Bellweather Rhapsody was influenced heavily by The Westing Game, I had to go out and get it that very day. As a kid I was OBSESSED with The Westing Game, a smart book that still holds up as an adult reader. While it’s easy to see TWG’s influence, Bellweather Rhapsody is firmly its own thing. If you like clever little mysteries with casts of interesting characters, this needs to go on your list.
Every year the majestic, but slightly crumbling Bellweather Hotel hosts Statewide, a festival for hundreds of gifted high school music students. This year, the weather forecast ominously promises that they’ll all be snowed in. When a student goes missing in the same spot that a famous murder/suicide took place fifteen years earlier, the search for her brings together an eccentric cast of characters including a pair of twins trying to figure out their futures, a controlling mother, an eccentric conductor, a washed up pianist, and two figures haunted by the murder/suicide fifteen years ago.
Kate Racculia deftly takes the murder mystery genre and twists it into something fresh. Bellweather Rhapsody might be an homage to The Westing Game, The Shining, or even Agatha Christie novels, but for every trope she employs, she turns another on its head. The plot is gripping, the characters interesting, and you can’t ask for a better murder mystery setting than a giant hotel filled with musicians. I can’t tell you how enjoyable this sharp, witty, slightly scary book was. Even a week later, I’m still thinking about these characters. Racculia wrote them so well and they got under my skin in a way that I’m not likely to shake any time soon.
Oo this sounds great. I loved the Westing Game as a kid and just re-read it…I’ll definitely pick this one up!
Can’t wait to see what you think. I should probably do a reread of TWG soon too. My niece is getting to be about the right age to appreciate it, so maybe I’ll see if she wants to read it together.
I can’t wait for the kids in my life to get old enough that I can give them ‘The Westing Game’ as a gift. (Unfortunately, the oldest of them is 4, so it’s probably going to be a while.) I too was obsessed with it as a kid, and did at least three book reports on it in elementary school ;)
I’ll have to check this book out!
I have actually known this author since, well, as long as I can remember (she’s one of my sister’s bffs and we still do an online book club together), so I’m always thrilled to see when people love it! Kate and my sister both read their personal copies of The Westing Game to pieces when we were kids (and myself as well as I got older), so there’s a strong appreciation in our gang of reading ladies!
That’s so cool! Can’t wait to see what she writes next :)