2024-03-23
A North Carolina librarian’s European honeymoon inspires her to create an exhibit at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library. Crime and chaos follow.
In advance of a traveling exhibit of valuable American Impressionist artworks that’s coming to the Outer Banks, Lucy McNeil hangs a number of reproductions in the library, adding one original canvas by George O’Callaghan, the less-talented brother of well-known Nags Head painter Robert, whose descendant Louise Jane McKaughnan, Lucy’s prickly frenemy, works at the library. The opening party goes well except for a defiant speech by local artist Ivan Novak. Lucy meets Mark Farrago, who organized the traveling exhibition opening the next day, and Louise Jane is attracted to mysterious attendee Tom Reilly. When Lucy gets to work the next morning, she’s frankly puzzled to discover that the forgettable O’Callaghan painting is missing—and her detective skills are further tested by the death of Farrago, whose body Lucy and her friends find in a koi pond at the party to celebrate the arrival of the real artwork. Lucy has noticed tension among the people involved in the traveling exhibition, and she thinks there may be quite a few suspects. Her friend Det. Sam Watson has used her unofficial assistance on several previous murders and is not averse to having her help this time. The discovery of the missing canvas at the library with its paper backing cut open leaves everyone wondering what might have been hidden inside. Because Reilly is high on the list of suspects, Louise Jane pushes Lucy to work with her to clear his name, putting them in mortal danger.
A neat package of art lore and murder set against the storied background of the Outer Banks.
