The Blood of an Englishman

The passage of time has perhaps been unkind to the English composer Maurice Greene. By 1730 he was one of the most senior musicians in England: Organist at St Paul’s Cathedral, Organist and Composer to the Chapel Royal, and Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge. When he was appointed Master of the King’s Music, in 1735, he held every significant appointment in the Kingdom.

Patrick Neate's second novel, Twelve Bar Blues, is a bouncy, ebullient book, "populated" (as one of its cast reflects midway through), "by absurd characters, dead ends and half truths" that tumbles "toward a punch-line that would seem inevitable with hindsight". It positively brims with outlandish, hilarious and moving (if occasionally hokey) tales…