My Tito Amato Mystery Series follows the career of an eighteenth-century castrato singer with a generous heart and a well-developed talent for justice.
The mutilation that made Tito a divo of the opera stage could have made him a bitter man, but in his case the physical violation resulted in empathy for anyone wronged by a repressive, uncaring society. A friendless stranger, the Jews of the Venetian ghetto, an acrobatic dwarf, a wise woman of the Old Religion, a murdered servant whose master would like to simply forget her—Tito seeks justice for these and more as the Venetian Empire slowly expires in a blazing carnival of intrigue and pleasure.
Tito’s adventures are available in eBook and Audio formats from the usual sources. The print books can also be purchased on the secondary market. I’ll soon be adding a list of some of my favorite, fabulous used bookstores where you can find many treasures. And, of course, there are our wonderful public libraries. I support reading in all forms—any way readers discover my work delights me.
Interrupted Aria
Venice, 1731. Disaster strikes Tito’s opera premier when the singer loses one beloved friend to poison and another to unjust accusation and arrest.
Alarmed that the merchant-aristocrat who owns the theater is pressing the authorities to close the case, Tito races the executioner to find the real killer. With carnival gaiety swirling around him and rousing Venetian passions to an ominous crescendo, Tito finds that the most astonishing secrets lurk behind the masks of friends and family.
“Beverle Graves Myers brings eighteenth-century Venice shimmering to life in this fast-paced and unsettling mystery that boasts atmosphere, layers of intrigue and, in Tito Amato, a most compelling protagonist. A virtuoso debut.”
--Ross King, author of Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling on Interrupted Aria
Painted Veil
Venice, 1734. Tito Amato has let fame go to his head.
Neglecting his vocal practice for dubious pleasures, Tito finds himself regulated to secondary roles and overshadowed by a visiting star. When the murder of a roguish scene painter threatens to close the opera house, the singer jumps at the chance to regain his status by finding the killer. The hunt leads Tito and his English friend, Augustus “Gussie” Rumbolt, into the depths of a city where religious hatred thrives and ancient cultures uneasily exist—where murder is the stuff of daily life.
“Myers provides an insightful and tender look at how those who are different—castrati, women, Jews—were treated at the time, as well as a wonderful view of elegant, decadent, nothing-is-as-it-seems-from-behind-the-masque Venice.”
--Publishers Weekly on Painted Veil
Cruel Music
Venice and Rome, 1740.
The impending death of Pope Clement heralds greed and ambition in Venice. Tito’s merchant brother, Alessandro, is imprisoned on trumped-up smuggling charges by authorities who are determined to have a Venetian as the next pope. To free his brother, Tito is forced to Rome to sing—and spy—at the villa of a music-loving cardinal who will control the next papal election. A beautiful corpse discovered in the cardinal’s garden complicates Tito’s mission. To snare an ungodly killer, Tito must learn to spy as well as he sings.
“Myers sets the stage beautifully, and her Tito Amato is an enduringly sympathetic character.”
--Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine on Cruel Music
The Iron Tongue of Midnight
Venetian Mainland, 1740. Tito’s opera company is rehearsing a new production at an isolated villa near Padua.
Though the setting is elegant and luxurious, music soon gives way to murder. One singer turns up dead at the stroke of midnight. Then another, and another. The arrival of a notorious figure from Tito’s past only increases the tension. As panic among the company rises, Tito and Gussie must identify the killer before they are also marked for death.
“Myers uses the intriguing 18th-century Italian settings to great advantage in this lively historical country house mystery.”
--Library Journal on The Iron Tongue of Midnight
Her Deadly Mischief
Venice, 1742. Tito has the audience at the Teatro San Marco entranced—until a flamboyant courtesan tumbles from a fourth-tier box.
Since Tito was the only one to see the masked man who pushed Zulietta to her death, the chief of Venice’s rudimentary police force demands the singer’s help. Did a wager over a rival courtesan’s jewels spell Zulietta’s death? Or did the murder involve sinister activities in the glass factories of Murano?
“The author brings the life of the city of Venice, its canals, bright colors and dark streets, opulent opera houses and Jewish ghettos, and more. The murder plot is multi-faceted, holding the reader’s attention throughout.”
--Betty J. Betz of Mysterious Reviews on Her Deadly Mischief
Whispers of Vivaldi
Venice, 1745. After an accident reduces Tito’s glorious voice to a husky croak, the singer is determined to prove himself as an opera director.
His old mentor, Maestro Torani, offers him a job if he can find a suitable opera. A second-rate composer comes up a score replete with beautiful melodies, but did the bumbling fellow really write it? Or as Tito comes to suspect, did he steal it from the great Antonio Vivaldi? Tito puts his detective skills to work, but his sleuthing turns deadly when murder intervenes.
“Myers builds a complex mystery and sets it in a beautiful world long since passed. Her characters are as vivid as the city she sets them in. A strong book for anyone who loves historical mystery.”
--Bryan Dumas in Historical Novel Review on Whispers of Vivaldi
Face of the Enemy
A stand-alone mystery/thriller cowritten by
Joanne Dobson and Beverle Graves Myers
New York, December 1941. As patriotism and paranoia grip the city after the brutal attack on Pearl Harbor, nurse Louise Hunter is outraged when the FBI detain her patient’s wife in a midnight sweep of prominent Japanese residents.
Avant-garde artist Masako Fumi’s troubles multiply when the murdered body of her art dealer is discovered in the gallery where he had been closing down her controversial show. NYPD detective Michael McKenna doubts her guilt, but an ambitious G-man seems determined to turn the murder and ensuing espionage accusations into a political cause celebre. Can an innocent Japanese woman find justice while America plunges into a worldwide war against her countrymen?
“Face of the Enemy is a deft historical novel that offers characters to care about, an engrossing story, a believable setting—and a window into a too-often-ignored chapter in recent America history. Read it for any one of those elements, or all of them; you’ll be glad you did.”
--S.J. Rozan, Edgar-winning author of Ghost Hero