The Maestro's Voice

The compelling new historical novel from the first-ever winner of the Daily Mail First Novel Award.

Roland Vernon was born in 1961 and educated at Eton, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music. He was briefly a professional singer but now divides his time between writing and managing his own small business. He is author of several biographical books on music and, most recently, Star in the East, a biography of the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. He lives in Somerset.

New York, 1926. Rocco Campobello, the great tenor - one of the most revered entertainers in the world - collapses on stage. He emerges from this brush with death a changed man: a fallen, but enlightened colossus, Casting off the mantle of celebrity, he embarks on a journey into his dark and sinister past which takes him back to his impoverished early life and to the city that made him: Naples. There he is forced to confront the truth about himself, his ruthlessness and treachery and to address ghosts from his past that he now seeks to lay to rest. 
 
Magnificent, flamboyant, yet impoverished and decaying, Naples is a city caught in the throes of change. The old ways, embodied in the activities of the camorra, the Italian mafia, are fighting to survive in the face of the brutal new poltics of Mussolini and his Fascists. Don Graziani, head of one of the city's most respected - and fear - families, has much to lose if the great tenor's career falls apart. In league with Campobello's near-estranged wife, he conspires to re-launch the great voice in magnificent fashion. When persuasion fails, he reveals his true colours and resorts to brutal blackmail as the means to force the tenor to go along with their plans and return to the stage. Rediscovering his own integrity, Campobello is compelled to hatch a dangerous counter plot of his own in order to outmanoeuvre them all and reclaim his life as his own... 
 
The Master's Voice weaves a rich and evocative path through a world of celebrity glamour, stinging violence, musical supremacy and scarred psyches.

A Dark Enchantment

Perfect middle-England storytelling from the winner of the inaugural Daily Mail First Novel Award.

A rousing, red-blooded tale with colourful characters in an exotic setting

This hugely enjoyable novel fairly rattles along at an ever-increasing page-turning rate... Debutant Vernon writes with all the assurance of an old pro, strong on character and good at finding the telling detail, and is definitely a name to watch.

A wonderful debut novel that completely transports you to another time and place... richly rewarding.

Roland Vernon was born in 1961 and educated at Eton, King's College Cambridge, and the Royal College of Music. Between the ages of 16 and 28 he spent about four months of every year in Greece, developing a close affinity with the country, its people and history. After a brief career as a professional singer, he settled in the countryside, dividing his time between writing and managing his own small rural business. He is author of several biographical books on music, and, most recently, Star in the East, a biography of the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. He lives in Somerset with his wife and three sons, and still visits Greece as regularly as his commitments allow.

Greece, 1869 
Godwin Tudor, a young English photographer recently arrived in Athens, is intrigued by the mysterious and maverick British landowner Edgar Brooke, whose vast estate dominates the island of Pyroxenia. 
 
Whilst visiting Brooke's remote home, Godwin is enchanted by the breathtaking landscape and his host's capricious young daughter Lydia. But all is not as it seems as inadvertently Godwin finds himself drawn into the centre of a dangerous political conspiracy. As events spiral out of control, Godwin does his best to play the diplomat in a terrifying international incident but the consequences prove more devastating than he can imagine. 
 
A maelstrom of romance, political intrigue and life-or-death drama, A Dark Enchantment marks the debut of an exciting new storyteller.

Roland Vernon

Contemporary, sinister obsession, dark psychological stuff which I am thoroughly enjoying... he is a talent well worth watching

The unexpected suicide of an apparently happy family man; a woman held captive for three years in a forgotten underground bunker; a middle aged clergyman at a crisis point in his life, drawn into an uncomfortable relationship with a teenaged girl. Against the backcloth of these interwoven tales comes the story of two very different men who meet accidentally and are dramatically thrown together. 
 
Piet Steyn and Granville St Clair happen both to be out walking at dawn on a country lane when they unintentionally become joint witnesses of a domestic tragedy. There is one aspect of what they see that morning which they feel compelled to keep secret - a decision that will later have appalling repercussions for them both. As the layers of their private lives begin to peel away, they find themselves unwillingly bound together in a conspiracy with deadly consequences. 
 
The Good Wife's Castle is a tense thriller that explores a clash of human evil and goodness, of despair, murderous obsession and twisted spirituality, all of which co-exist beneath the veneer of seemingly respectable people in a quiet rural community.

Roland Vernon

Praise for The Good Wife's Castle

Contemporary, sinister obsession, dark psychological stuff which I am thoroughly enjoying... he is a talent well worth watching

Books by Roland Vernon

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