The Rainaldi Quartet (2006)

In Paul Adam's elegant mystery, The Rainaldi Quartet, Italian violin maker Tomaso Rainaldi is chiseled to death because he knows something about the long-missing ''Messiah's Sister,'' a ''perfect, unplayed, priceless'' creation of the famed violin maker Antonio Stradivari. Members of his string quartet — Father Arrighi, the parish priest; Antonio Guastafeste, a police detective; and fellow violin maker Gianni Castiglione — fan out across Italy and England in the hunt for his killer, a search that is as haunting and beautiful as any classically composed requiem. The denouement may come as no surprise, but getting there is a rare treat.