Author Book Reading & Discussion: Sonata in Wax

We’re so pleased to be able to host Colorado Book Award winner Edward Hamlin here at Townie!

Fans of historical fiction will love this dual-timeline mystery novel.

“Sonata in Wax is lush with music, mystery, and lyrical prose. Edward Hamlin manages to take the story of a lost sonata and transform it into a literary symphony. A wonderful debut novel!”
— Dominic Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

As the Great War rages, a French pianist sits down to play a breathtakingly original sonata—a piece so strange and inspired that it could change the course of classical music. The moment is captured on wax cylinders, the recording medium of the day. But in the tumult of war the fragile cylinders vanish, and with them the identities of the brilliant composer and the virtuoso pianist.

A century later, five timeworn wax cylinders land on the desk of Ben Weil, a revered classical music producer. From the moment he first plays them in his Chicago studio, Ben knows he’s in the presence of genius. The dazzling piece is fifty years ahead of its time, more Coltrane than Debussy—how could it be?

Brought low by a painful divorce, Ben throws himself into unlocking the sonata’s mysteries. But when the renowned pianist Ana Clara Matta stumbles upon the work and takes credit for unearthing it, he’s swept into a lie that could shatter his reputation and his private life at a stroke. Somehow Ben must find a way to tell the truth—a dangerous quest that will lead him not only to the sonata’s surprising origins, but to his own.