A Palette for Love and Murder. Saralyn Richard, author. This well-plotted mystery and crime novel, along with its excellent characterization, is even better than the author’s first, Murder in the One Percent, which is saying a lot (the latter won a prize). Shortly after I reviewed that first book, I asked the author about plans for a sequel. She promised one, I eagerly awaited it, and here it is—and it’s a winner too!

My readers probably know that stolen art (The Collector and Rembrandt’s Angel) and lost art (Son of Thunder) are among my favorite themes. Here the story starts when two pieces painted by Brandywine Valley artist, Blake Allmond, are stolen. Detective Parrott takes the case, and the game’s afoot. I felt right at home immediately. The author even mentions the stolen artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (they play an important role in The Collector). (We used to live in the Boston area and were shocked when we heard about that 1990 theft.)

Having read book #1, I also felt right at home with Detective Parrott from the West Brandywine PD. But another important character is now added to his life, his new wife Tonya, who suffers from PTSD due to her service in Afghanistan. She plays an important role in the story in addition to providing a bit of romance in her cop husband’s life.

Yet this is a murder mystery, so we need a murder victim. Allmond is murdered even before Parrott can interview him about the stolen paintings. This sets up a tense situation between NYPD and the local Brandywine police because the former are in charge of the murder investigation, the latter are in charge of investigating who stole the artworks, and, as you might expect, they step on each other’s toes due to the overlap of the cases.

Suspects start appearing: a ne’er-do-well nephew of the murdered artist; that artist’s live-in girlfriend, an ex-nun with a past; the nephew’s girlfriend and her brother, a landscaper at the artist’s estate; and the owner of an art gallery who was jilted by the artist’s sister. Which ones stole the paintings? Which ones murdered the artist? And how are they related? You now have a hoppy IPA for any lover of murder mysteries!

Parrott continues his expert sleuthing in a way that would make his old alter-ego Hercule Poirot proud. (Okay, the author doesn’t exactly mention that, but the analogy is sound.) Moreover, he’s my kind of guy! He likes his coffee “…delicious, strong and woodsy, and almost scalding…” (I’m not sure about the “woodsy”—I’m not partial to “chicory coffee,” for example, although I drank some in Orleans once just to try it). The author echoes several of my drinking preferences, in fact. The serving of Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio reminded me of a night in Boston’s North End where everyone in our four-member dining party drank a full bottle; the requisite visit to Mike’s Pastry followed (but we didn’t see Bill Clinton); and public transportation was used afterwards.

Readers, led along by Parrott, have to face lots of twists and turns as the two cases near resolution. Like many mysteries, there are some thriller elements in this story, probably more so than in the first book, which is more a classic Christie-like who-dun-it. Sexual relationships are a bit more complicated here too, to say the least, and are something Christie would never have written about. None of those are explicit, although some are implied in the paintings considered. Neither is the violence explicit, but the story is one for our times, and features the differences between one-percenters and the rest of us, as well as the similarities.

I put this book down with reluctance after reading most of it in one sitting, thereby forcing myself to take my time and savor the last few chapters in the next day’s reading. It’s that kind of book. You probably will feel the same way.

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Comments are always welcome.

Just a note about availability: The above book is available in ebook and print format at Amazon and from the publisher, Black Opal Books; it will also be available real soon in all ebook formats at Smashwords, as well as all their affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lending and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Bakers & Taylor, Gardners, etc.); and it will be available at your local bookstores (if they don’t have it, ask them to order it). I read the Kindle version.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

 

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