Trailer Park Tuesday: Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

It's pure coincidence that, just before I play the trailer for Kate Racculia's new novel Bellweather Rhapsody, I'm listening to the soundtrack for The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Alexandre Desplat's jaunty, jingling score for the new Wes Anderson movie seems to be a good fit for Bellweather Rhapsody, which is also set in a hotel and features hijinks both deadly and gleeful.  The short, obscure trailer for the book is little more than stop-motion tarot cards crawling across the screen and tells us little about the plot.  Nothing to see here, folks, move along, move along.  But it also has a slice of Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt for its background music--which is equally appropriate, judging by what little I've read so far in these pages.  How to describe Bellweather Rhapsody?  Hmm...well, there's a murder-suicide, see.  And it's witnessed by a twelve-year-old bridesmaid.  And then, flashing-forward fifteen years, we have a bunch of teens who've gathered for a statewide music festival in that same hotel, along with Minnie, that once-traumatized bridesmaid.  There's a bassoonist named Rabbit Hatmaker and his twin sister Alice (hello, Lewis Carroll!), a missing girl, and a "colossal snowstorm."  Oh, and the book's epigraphs are from Kierkegaard and David Foster Wallace, hinting that what follows will be smart and gloomy.  (I'm also curious about the alternate spelling of "bellwether" in the title, but assume it will eventually be explained somewhere in the 340 pages.)  In short, Bellweather Rhapsody has all the makings of a genre-twisting page-turner with nods to The Shining, Agatha Christie and Glee (according to the book's jacket copy).  I don't know about you, but I'm putting this one high on my To-Be-Read list.  She had me at "bassoonist."