Award-winning Canadian memoirist and novelist Morley Torgov has launched a murder mystery fiction series.

With Murder in A-Major (Napoleon and Company), Torgov has broken new ground in his second career as a writer.

Published last month in Toronto, Murder in A-Major is set in 1850s Germany, populated by real-life figures such as the musicians Robert and Clara Schumann and features Torgov’s newest character, the Dusseldorf police inspector Hermann Preiss.

The dust jacket describes the plot as “a delightful historical mystery with a light touch” in which “the reader is led into the world of mid-19th century music, where classical composers were stars and their egos were just as monstrous as the rock stars of today.”

In fleshing out the story, Torgov explores the rivalries, love affairs and infidelities of the period, throwing in blackmail and murder to spice things up.

“The reason I wrote this book is two-fold,” he explained last week. “Firstly, I have been hooked on classical music since I was a very young child. Secondly, I have long been intrigued by the fact that so many creative geniuses of that time were so entirely screwed up in their private lives.”

The idea came to him some years ago, but he did not get down to work on it until his young adult novel, Stickler and Me, was published in 2005.

It was an arduous process. Torgov produced five drafts before he and his editor were completely satisfied with the manuscript.

A lawyer by day, specializing in corporate and commercial law, real estate, estate planning and trademark law, he admits he became a professional writer rather late in life.

Born in Sault Ste. Marie in 1927, he was always drawn to the written word.

At the age of 12, he wrote a Boy Scouts column for the local newspaper, and at 16, he became a reporter for the Sault Daily Star.

Yet he did not follow his dreams.

Nudged by his father to study medicine, Torgov resisted his entreaties.

“Law was a compromise,” he said. “In retrospect, I have no regrets. I do believe that a career in law has the benefit of honing one’s skills in the use of language and, to some extent, one’s ability to see life through a sharper prism.”

Before entering Osgoode Hall Law School, Torgov finished a BA degree at the University of Toronto.

“I majored in gin rummy, canasta, the revelries of fraternity life and eating at the Crescent Grill, near the corner of Spadina and College,” he recalled. “My other major source of enjoyment was attending classes in English literature.”

“All the rest is forgettable,” he added.

Looking back, Torgov says that his delay in becoming a writer of books was understandable.

“For the first 15 years after I graduated from law school in 1954, I was too occupied in building a law practice to devote much time to writing, although I did turn out several produced television plays and various print articles.”

With the death of his father in 1965,  he finally felt free to write “frankly and fully” about his youth in Sault Ste. Marie and its Jewish community.

Having been liberated from his inhibitions, he wrote his first book, A Good Place to Come From, which was published in 1974 and won the Leacock Medal for Humour.

The CBC subsequently transformed it into a mini TV series, while American playwright Israel Horovitz adapted it into three plays, which are still staged at regional theatres in North America.

Torgov’s other novel, The Outside Chance of Maximillian Glick, which was eventually published in several languages, won the Leacock Medal as well and was made into a Canadian feature film and a 26-part CBC TV series.

Torpov has also written The Abramsky Variations, St. Farb’s Day and The War to End All Wars.

These days, when he is well into a new project, Torgov writes for several hours every evening after dinner and on Saturday and Sunday mornings and during holidays at his cottage in Haliburton.

“I tend to be very self-disciplined about this process, so that even after a full days’ work at my office, I manage to fulfill that evenings agenda at the typewriter.”

An old-fashioned man, he eschews computers. “I work on an Olivetti manual typewriter purchased in 1957. Being a Luddite, I leave it to my longtime legal assistant and secretary, Joanne DeLio, to do the final draft on a computer.”

Currently, Torgov is working on a sequel to Murder in A-Major. “This one will be centred around the brilliant and infamous composer Richard Wagner.”

The tentative title is The Mastersinger from Minsk.