Mozart's Last Aria by Matt Rees

In 1791 at the age of thirty six and at the peak of his success as the star of Vienna's musical world Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died.   Six weeks before his death he had told his wife that he had been poisoned.   His sister, Maria Anna known as Nannerl, arrives in Vienna determined to discover the truth.   There she discovers that there was more to her brothers life than his dedication to music, he had become entwined with the growing secret society known as the Freemasons.   The Freemasons were regarded in Court circles as a subversive organisation connected to the French philosophical movement known as The Enlightenment and so to the revolutionaries who had recently overthrown the French Monarchy.   This association had lead to Mozart coming to the attention of Count Pergen the head of the Austrian secret service and he seems determined to frustrate Nannerl's enquiries into her brother's death.   Did Mozart die as a result of a Masonic plot?   His last opera "The Magic Flute" is certainly full of Masonic symbolism but there are other forces at work at the Court of the Austrian Emperor not least agents of the King of Prussia.   Matt Rees has used Mozart's tragic death to construct an excellent mystery story which kept me enthralled and which I can heartily recommend.