Death in The Sun: A Sunny, Lighthearted Cozy Murder Mystery (Costa del Sol Mysteries Book 1) by P.J. Fox

Author:P.J. Fox [Fox, P.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atalante Books
Published: 2024-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

seventeen

Emily was agitated. Days came and left, but she got no further. Eduardo was progressing nicely, step by step. But all Emily had to show for the past weeks was the same old murder board with the same strings of yarn that had been there from the start. She had Post-its of the people who attended the dinner and Pedro the caterer. Eduardo had added a Post-it that said “MYSELF?” with a smiley. Emily had let it stay on the board.

She stared at her murder board again, trying to see it as if for the first time.

One name stuck out.

Sylvie.

Emily underlined her name over and over and was thinking hard. She remembered clearly how cold and amused Sylvie had seemed when Richard had died. It was almost as if she had raised her glass when Richard collapsed face-first into his tapas plate. Emily had never been at the scene of a death before, so she didn’t know how people were supposed to behave. But there was something creepy and weird about how Sylvie had reacted.

She obviously needed to find out more about Sylvie. But how?

Sneaking around Sylvie wasn’t going to be easy. Sylvie was clearly shrewd and cunning. She had caught Emily when Emily tailed her and also manipulated her into embarrassing herself at the bookstore.

Sylvie required a lighter touch.

Some googling revealed that there was a gallery in Nerja that sold her paintings, the Amalia Arte.

She had been many Emilys throughout her life. There was the awkward kid who read Hardy Boys mysteries. There was the high school exchange student, naively falling in love with art like only a teenager could. Then there was the Old Masters specialist. An adult, or at least pretending to be an adult. Professional, ticking off boxes, lease, life in Manhattan, the importance of designer lamps, appropriate boyfriend, adequate friends. She had buried herself in her career, late nights researching obscure Spanish painters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She had been passionate about the work. Life, less so.

Who was she now? This was Emily the amateur sleuth, and this Emily was determined to have fun.

She went to the art gallery in the early afternoon. It was the sort of art gallery that mainly catered to tourists: outside the gallery were plenty of potted plants; a dancing Shiva statue of bronze; seashells, necklaces, and other trinkets on display; and various intricate terra-cotta statues of primitive art.

And then, inside the gallery, on the walls, they had Sylvie’s paintings on display, illuminated by spotlights. It was a series of vibrant self-portraits, vaguely erotic, with Sylvie in various stages of night and day against backdrops of Spanish mountains and sea, looking out with a sultry pout at the spectator.

Some older gentlemen were laughing and taking photos of the portraits with their phones.

“Can I help you?” A petite Spanish lady in her early sixties standing at the cash register peered at Emily through thick glasses. Some easy-listening version of flamenco emanated from the small speakers placed around the gallery. There was an earthy scent of clay and citrus in the air.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.