The Lost Cymbal, by Irving Vanderblock-Wheedle. Fact: In 1982, the director of the NSA jumped off the roof of the Little Tavern on Wisconsin Avenue. His only words as he recovered from his minor injuries were “Avedis Zildjian,” over and over again, until the nurse at Walter Reed told him to shut up.

Thus begins Irving Vanderblock-Wheedle’s latest globe-spanning suspense thriller, in which renowned Harvard cymbalogist Dirk Sizzle must evade the machinations of the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, the Little Sisters of the Poor, the American Association of Retired People, and a dangerously unstable labradoodle named Cuthbert to track down a legendary cymbal cast in 1623 by Avedis Zildjian himself.