The Otello Omen

About the Book

Superstar singer Carlo Paoli is receiving grotesque phone calls and letters which threaten him with death. Despite reassurances by the Manhattan police that this frequently happens to celebrities and is likely nothing to fear, the frightened singer tries to deduce who could be sending these unnerving messages. Carlo's egocentric wife Diana teasingly suggests that it could be his mother, whom he has neglected for years. The suggestion horrifies Carlo. He convinces himself that the threats must be coming from another singer, someone jealous of Carlo's success, whose career would shine more brightly if Carlo were no longer on the world's stage.

Carlo's good friend and occasional rival Tony Amato tries to reassure him; the reassurances only increase Carlo's paranoia. And Carlo does not (cannot) imagine who many of the people who dance around his life one way or another (relatives, actors, conductors, fans, doctors) actually want to see him dead. Eventually Carlo becomes convinced that Tony has sent these threats.

The lives of these two singers, and those of the threatening group around them, move closer, until they collide at a huge benefit concert, and the identity of the unlikely perpetrator is revealed.

About the Author

Jean Dell is a first generation Canadian of English and French descent. A sometime freelance journalist, she now writes suspense novels set in the theatrical and musical worlds. She also writes and illustrates children's books.

Attending university in mid-life when her two daughters were growing up, she obtained degrees in English and French literature, and journalism.

She has played violin and viola in several Western Canadian symphony orchestras. One of her musical passions is opera, to which she was introduced in France by her Parisian mother.

Jean Dell has travelled, mostly in North America and Europe, and has lived (too briefly) in France. She now lives in Vancouver, Canada.