Book Two Characters

I have to warn you that if you have not already read Book One, THIS PAGE WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

The Lost Concerto : Cast of Characters

Chrispen Brooks

Chrispen returns as our narrator in Book Two.  She’s still very much the same as we knew her, but the harrowing events of Book One have changed her a little.  For instance, Chrispen now owns a handgun and practices at the shooting range weekly.  Chrispen is still a violinist, not James Bond.  But I do find her to be a bit less naive in this story.

Chrispen has perhaps-previously-untapped reserves of anger and indignation, and that’s good, because she’s going to need them.  We join up with her as she and Alexis travel to his first foreign performance in five years.  It is a wonderful opportunity, and they’re both very excited.  But of course, things don’t proceed as planned.  Before they even leave the country they are receiving mysterious messages warning them not to go.

And after they get there, well…it only gets worse.  Chrispen gets to experience some of the downsides of fame, from sharing Alexis’s attention to invasion of privacy.

And when Alexis abruptly disappears, what will Chrispen do then?

Alexis Brooks

After his exoneration in Book One, Alexis has enjoyed an upsurge in popularity, culminating in a recent proposition for a concert in Zwickau, Germany to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann with a performance of Schumann’s Violin Concerto.  Alexis is on top of the world: foreign engagements are fun anyway, and he’s getting to perform a concerto he hasn’t done before.  He has his fame and his family back.

But when the threats and harassing behavior they experience seem to target Chrispen, he’s ready to toss that aside and head back to the States.  Chrispen talks him down from that ledge–but at what cost?

Alexei Bruskalov

As we learned in Book One, Alexei is no stranger to seeing loved ones in peril because of him.  But this is the first time that those tables have been turned–now Alexei is in real and growing danger because of Alexis and Chrispen’s situation in Germany.  He’s used as collateral to control his son and daughter-in-law, and he doesn’t like it.

Irena Katarovski

Irena Katarovski seems to be little more than a shadowy presence and a name; an unfamiliar name at that.  Who is Irena?  What does she have to do with any of the things happening around the Brooks family?

Petrov Katarovski

Petrov Katarovski is a name familiar to almost everyone, even non-political people like Alexis.  Katarovski is an up-and-coming popular politician in Russia.  He’s a descendant of Joseph Stalin and pretty proud of that, and much of his political platform is built on Stalin’s policies–even the horrible ones.

Anya Katarovski

Anya Katarovski is Petrov’s wife.  She is fiercely devoted to her family.

Dmitri Kast

If this name strikes you as familiar, you are right!  He was mentioned in passing towards the beginning of the first book, but now we finally get to meet virtuoso violinist Dmitri Kast.  He and Alexei Bruskalov go way back.  But there is more to Dmitri than meets the eye…