Brodie Moncur is a piano tuner in Edinburgh which sounds like a pretty low-key profession, but in the hands of William Boyd certainly is not. It's the last decade of the 19th century when Brodie has the opportunity to move to his employer's new Paris showroom and help establish the brand on the Continent.

Brodie is an artist, not only musically, but also as a tuner. He knows how to shave and balance the hammers so that a piano has just the touch the pianist needs. This gift is what brings John Kilbarron--"The Irish Lizst"--into the fold as a representative of Brodie's piano company. They travel across Europe and Russia, travels made prickly by transporting a grand piano hither and yon, and by Brodie's growing obsession with Kilbarron's lover, a Russian soprano named Lika Blum.

""Love is Blind" has many of the classic Boyd features; the silvery, unattainable woman, a wavering, flawed man with a special talent. As in the best of Boyd's novels, you are immediately immersed in the time and place, familiar, yet quirky and unexpected. There's an aspect of his writing that will tickle you in a subversive way.

My favorite of his novels is "The New Confessions" and the thrillers are masterful as well. It's such a joy to read his latest, and continue to experience him as a writer at his best.