Collecting Can Be Murder (Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – France
Traveling Life Press (May 31, 2023)
Approximately 250 Pages

Synopsis

Coming out of retirement can be deadly…

After tragedy struck three years earlier, art sleuth Carmen De Luca vowed to never work in the field again. But fifty is too young to fill her days with water aerobics and bingo, so when her former partner calls and begs for her help, Carmen gladly agrees.

Yet after their first assignment – the recovery of a rare medieval prayer book from an eccentric collector living in rural France – goes horribly wrong, Carmen ends up in the crosshairs of both the local police and a murderer!

With her target dead and the stolen book missing, she and her partner will have to pull out all of the stops to sleuth out the true killer’s identity – before their stay in France becomes permanent.

Introducing Carmen De Luca, an art sleuth with a nose for mystery and the job of locating valuable artwork stolen from museums around the world. If you love strong and resourceful heroines, puzzling mysteries, and a dash of art history, pick up Collecting Can Be Murder now!

 

Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries:

Book One: Collecting Can Be Murder
Book Two: A Statue To Die For

More adventures coming soon!

These mysteries contain no graphic violence, sex, or strong language.

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Guest Post

A Day in the Life of Carmen De Luca, Art Sleuth

Hello! I’m Carmen De Luca, an art sleuth for the Rosewood Agency. Or, I was until my husband was murdered and my world fell apart. My employer specialized in the kinds of art loss cases that no other organization was able to solve.

My job at the Rosewood Agency could best be described as surveillance and reconnaissance. Our leads were often virtual in nature, and not always one-hundred percent that it was indeed the stolen work of art we were searching for. That’s where operatives such as myself came in. Before my retirement, I had specialized in verifying the more urgent cases—paintings and sculptures that, for one reason or another, Rosewood’s researchers suspected were probably going to disappear quite soon. I was quite adept and getting into a suspect’s home, finding and verifying the object in question, and vanishing again, without raising any alarms.

Once I’d located the possibly stolen object and could verify whether it was the one we sought or not, I passed the information back to my employer, who sicced the company lawyers on the thief-in-question. However, our priority is not to catch the thief, but recover the artwork – by (almost) any means necessary.

I was considered one of the agency’s best, that is until my husband Carlos was killed on the job. He was a fellow recovery specialist assigned to verify statues in the hands of a rich Italian collector, a man who later turned out to be a high-ranking member of the mafia. Or at least, my employer and I assumed that was what had happened. My husband’s body had never been found, meaning I had to bury a box of rocks, instead.

His death threw my life into a tailspin, one that took me three years to get out of. But fifty-two is too young to retire. I have a lot of life and spunk left in me yet, and want to use it doing what I love most – recovering stolen artwork.

Admittedly, being an art sleuth on retainer was not a particularly well-paid job, when one considered the value of the works I was helping to recover, but it did come with lots of cushy benefits that more than made up for the salary. I was particularly fond of traveling first class, and I know my former partner, Lady Sophie, loved the luxurious hotels they usually put us up in.

I was searching for a way back, when Lady Sophie called and begged for my help with a series of recovery assignments in Europe. So here I am, in rural France, hoping to verify and possibly recover a stolen manuscript from a rich American expat.

My skills may be a bit rusty, but I’m enjoying being back in the middle of the action again. Which is good, considering I’ve landed in the middle of a murder investigation!

If only my target hadn’t of been killed, this would have been the easiest recover job of my career. Yet instead of celebrating with a shopping spree in Paris, I have to figure out who really killed the collector before the cops find a reason to pin the crimes on me. My being the last person to be seen with him isn’t helping matters!

I hope you’ll join me on my current investigation. Who knows? You might be able to figure out who killed my target before I do! I sure hope so, there’s a pair of Prada heels calling my name…

About the Author

Jennifer S. Alderson was born in San Francisco, grew up in Seattle, and currently lives in Amsterdam. After traveling extensively around Asia, Oceania, and Central America, she lived in Darwin, Australia, before finally settling in the Netherlands.

Jennifer’s love of travel, art, and culture inspires her award-winning Zelda Richardson Mystery series, her Travel Can Be Murder Cozy Mysteries, and her Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries. Her background in journalism, multimedia development, and art history enriches her novels.

When not writing, she can be found perusing a museum, biking around Amsterdam, or enjoying a coffee along the canal while planning her next research trip.

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