My debut novel The Hands of Pianists is officially out tomorrow. (Please see good online bookstores for details.) Hands has received some quite amazing recommendations. The great Liszt pianist Leslie Howard calls it ‘rich and remarkable’. W. G. Sebald scholar Dr Deane Blackler says it ‘offers much to reflect on, a great deal to admire, and perhaps a little to fear’. Golden-voiced Colin Fox, formerly of ABC Classic and these days a presenter at radio 3MBS, would like Hands sub-titled …

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Even a sideways glance at great pianist Annie Fischer’s left hand tells you that she could throttle pigs with it. Plough fields. Dig trenches. Or murder Liszt’s most difficult piano music. Taken decades ago by Jeno Szots for Jozsef Gat’s famous tome The Technique of Piano Playing, the snap demonstrates a key attribute of great ‘piano’ hands — long little fingers. Most great pianists have big, strong, peasant hands with long little fingers. For the most demanding music they help …

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Actually, nowhere is a good country for elite young pianists. Especially terrifying is the stage of a 2000-seat concert hall where a big black Steinway is waiting to abuse you. Formidable Australian pianist Noel Mewton-Wood had just turned 31 when he drained a tumbler of liquid cyanide in the front room of his home, now in a posh inner-London suburb. Mewton-Wood had recently lost his partner Bill. But he was a promiscuous homosexual, and it was 1953. Were the police …

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