Robert Niblett

The Mozart Seminar Robert Niblett

The Mozart Seminar by Robert Keith is a comic thriller about what happens when the St Griswolds Chamber Choir makes its return visit to sing with a choir in Corsica. The dramatic tale of that choir's Christmas visit to St Griswolds was told in the previous book in this series, The Corsican Exchange. The twin sopranos, Flora and Dora, have secretly exchanged identities. On their 25th birthday whichever is the first born must become an hereditary Director of LEMUR, a fabulously wealthy and totally unscrupulous insurance company set up by five families in 1485. Mordred, the Cathedral organist who is also Chairman of LEMUR and lover of one of the twins, has not only to foil the plots of his own twin brother Max to supplant him; another Director is preparing a violent coup to take control of LEMUR. Meanwhile the LEMUR conference facilities have been taken over by the Mozart Seminar, an organisation dedicated to maximising human happiness by bringing the most powerful people in the world together for a combination of debates and fairground rides on the theme of Mozart operas. The Seminar is run by the enigmatic figure of The Architect, who models himself on Sarastro in Mozart's Magic Flute. He has developed computer programs which can provide information on the effects of any course of action on human happiness. As the visiting St Griswolds choir present their music, the rogue Director mounts his coup, a Seminar debate on the Internet goes sour, and there is mayhem on the fairground rides. It looks as if the planet is heading for nuclear destruction when the Internet itself takes a hand.