THE ARTIST COLONY

In this whodunit set in 1924, a famous painter in Carmel, California, is found dead on the beach and the authorities claim that she killed herself.

Sarah Cunningham is the doubting sister who has always lived in artist Ada Belle Davenport’s shadow. While conflicted, she is still determined to do right by her big sister. Alvin Judd, a bumptious marshal, conducted the inquest into Ada’s death with unseemly haste before Sarah could get to California from Paris, where she herself is an artist. She isn’t buying the suicide report. There are other doubters. One is Rosie McCann, a bit of a Miss Marple, who is sure that Ada was murdered and is willing to help. Then there is the mysterious Sirena Kassajara-Silvia, who is a walking web of lies; the unscrupulous gallery owner Paul deVrais, whom Ada recently cut ties with; and the dreamboat Robert Pierce, a professional photographer whom Sarah is falling for. Throw in fake suicide notes, forged paintings, and the fact that Ada was pregnant and excited to marry her lover, the actor Alain Delacroix, and things get really interesting. Sarah is living in Ada’s house with her sister’s Jack Russell terrier, Albert, a bit of a sleuth himself. Scary things happen in that house. True to trope, the climactic scene has the hero fighting for her life. Of course, Ada was murdered; the clues are a bit of a murky mix; and readers may suss out the killer before the climax. But FitzPatrick keeps the pot stirred nicely, with revelations popping up like whack-a-mole. There is also a nice sense of scene, capturing this idyllic place on the Monterey peninsula. And the author brings in subthemes, like the racial animosity toward the Japanese (Sirena is half Japanese), which is cringingly portrayed; the rampant male chauvinism of art critics; and the influence of the rumrunners (this is Prohibition, but the taps seem to be wide open in Carmel and Monterey). While FitzPatrick is not in the first rank of crime novelists, she weaves a satisfying story.

A tale delivers an escape to gorgeous Carmel and an engaging mystery.