We think it would have been more satisfying to see Drake learn that life is about more than living by the rules and then adjust his life accordingly. But certainly that isn’t always the case.

Perhaps this is how things were-and are-in the realms of government and empire. Mason’s apparent message that those who fail to live by the authorities’ rules eventually get squashed seems a bit trite. As we neared the end, the thought did pass through my mind, “What if the author does X? No, surely, he wouldn’t.” But he did. Numerous omens early in the book presage disaster for the mild-mannered Drake, but I naively believed they were simply plot devices to raise suspense and keep the reader engaged. The plot concerns a British piano tuner, Edgar Drake, who is sent to Burma to tune an Erard grand piano in the possession of an eccentric military doctor stationed at a jungle outpost in territory claimed by the British-a claim understandably contested by the region’s inhabitants. Ultimately, though, the book left us unsatisfied (warning: plot revelation ahead). We immediately put the book on reserve at the library, and once it came, Mason’s intriguing plot, tantalizing imagery, and mesmerizing style kept us turning the pages late into several nights. Sensuous, lyrical, rich with passion and adventure, this is a hypnotic tale of myth, romance, and self-discovery: an unforgettable novel.We were hooked after reading the first chapter of The Piano Tunerby Daniel Mason during a one-night getaway to a B&B near Jacksonville, Oregon. And at the doctor’s fort on a remote Burmese river, Edgar encounters a world more mysterious and dangerous than he ever could have imagined. On his journey through Europe, the Red Sea, India, and into Burma, Edgar meets soldiers, mystics, bandits, and tale-spinners, as well as an enchanting woman as elusive as the surgeon-major.

The piano belongs to an army surgeon-major whose unorthodox peacemaking methods-poetry, medicine, and now music-have brought a tentative quiet to the southern Shan States but have elicited questions from his superiors. In October 1886, Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War Office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London to travel to the jungles of Burma, where a rare Erard grand piano is in need of repair. An extraordinary first novel that tells the story of a British piano tuner sent deep into Burma in the nineteenth century.

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason