Brendan Slocumb’s ‘Symphony of Secrets’ is a dazzling musical mystery.

On this week’s episode, Brendan Slocumb joins us to discuss Symphony of Secrets (Anchor, April 18), a standout sophomore novel from the author of The Violin Conspiracy (2022). Slocumb, a working musician and decorated music educator, takes it up an octave in this highly anticipated follow-up. “Sophomore novels don’t get much better than this,” Kirkus avows in a starred review.

Symphony of Secrets stars musicology professor Bern Hendricks, who unintentionally discovers his hero, Samuel Delaney—the world’s greatest composer, and namesake of a powerful multimillion-dollar foundation dedicated to preserving his legacy—may not have written the music that made him a household name. Here’s a bit more from our review:

“When Bern Hendricks, a musicology professor at the University of Virginia, is contacted by the Delaney Foundation, he’s shocked.…Bern is even more floored when it turns out the group has discovered the manuscript of RED, a long-lost Delaney opera, and wants him to prepare it for performance. Bern enlists the help of his friend Eboni, a computer scientist who’s worked on musical analysis of Delaney’s other operas. Bern discovers a mysterious notation in the copy of RED, which puts him and Eboni on the track of a Black woman named Josephine Reed who knew Delaney, but they can’t quite figure out what the relationship entailed—until they do and begin to realize that Delaney, who died of suicide in 1936, might not have been the genius Bern thought he was.”

Slocumb and host Megan Labrise talk about Symphony of Secrets’ effervescent Kirkus review; how touring for The Violin Conspiracy helped inspired Symphony of Secrets; a close reading of the novel’s opening paragraph; Professor Bern Hendricks’ relationship to late composer Frederick Delaney and the Delaney Foundation; computer security whiz Eboni Washington; rules for touring and ranking New York City pizza parlors; Slocumb’s love letter to Oxford, North Carolina; tight-knit family dynamics; and much more.

Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, Eric Liebetrau, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.

Editors’ picks:

Hope Against Hope by Sheena Wilkinson (Little Island)

Spicy Spicy Hot! by Lenny Wen (Little, Brown)

You Have To Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin To Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America by Paul Kix (Celadon Books)

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jiménez (Grand Central Publishing)

Also mentioned on this episode:

Derry Girls (TV series)

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Knopf)

Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat & Family by Rabia Chaudry (Algonquin)

Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips (Norton)

Sugar Town Queens by Malla Nunn (Putnam)

Thanks to our sponsors:

Shotgun Johanna by R.M. Burgess

A Few Murders in My Neighborhood by Henry Olek

Hyde and Zeke: Cutie and the Beast by Josh Langston

All Things Under and Over the Sun and Stars: Enigmas in Various Stages by Maurice James Blair

The Prophecy of the Heron: An AI Dystopia Novel by Craig W. Stanfill

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.