Today When There’s Only a Christmas Wish Blog Tour is visiting Dan Antion! Thank you, Dan 🙂 But before you head over, have you read his wonderful books? I’ve not only felt like I’ve visited Pittsburgh, but they have great characters and storylines. Here’s his latest. The tour stop is at the end of this blog.

The Museum Murders: A Rascal Todd Mystery

We first met Rachael (Rascal) Todd in the final book of The Dreamer’s Alliance series. She had just graduated from the University of Georgia, and joined the staff of The Courier-Reformer where she she sought to unravel the unsolved murder of a corrupt FBI agent, but ended up becoming a target. She has been solving mysteries ever since — cases that the police and others have given up on or not considered crimes. She is aided and supported by friends and family, including her boss, Bernie, her parents, her boyfriend Terry, and a curiously perceptive tuxedo cat, Bonkers.

In The Museum Murders, Rascal Todd has been given a new assignment in the Arts & Entertainment section of the paper. She attends a public meeting at a niche museum in Pittsburgh housed in a building that was once an Underground Railroad station on the now non-existent Pennsylvania canal. She arrives early for the meeting and what she overhears piques her investigative instincts. The Courier’s editor is threatened with legal action if he allows Rascal to explore the history of the museum, including rumors of a long-hidden fortune and the long past and recent deaths of museum board members.Some people are convinced that the deaths of three of the museum’s trustees were murders. The police either don’t agree or don’t have enough evidence to act upon. Rascal can’t shake the idea, and she can’t ignore the multiple coincidental encounters with a man she grows to consider to be the prime suspect. In addition to the activity at the museum, her boyfriend volunteers her to help a woman whose sister has gone missing and is presumed dead. While helping Hildegarde Barsan search for her artist sister, Rachael runs into another troubling connection and has to sort through some troubling emotions.

Is Henrieta Barsan dead? Did Walter Phineas Skylark pass down a fortune? Did Theodore Skylark keep the fortune hidden in the Skylark Museum? How many trustees have been murdered? Who’s next?

The Museum Murders is a mix of historical fiction and mystery. It’s a character-driven story with rich and often humorous dialog. Set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the story benefits from the rich history of that region. The story follows a complex series of clues, all pointing to murder.

Readers of this author’s previous books will be happy to find their favorite characters hard at work, and new readers will be introduced to these characters without having to have read the earlier books (but they may want to).

My Review

Rascal the journalist is back with a new mystery. She is pulled into a case where a woman’s sister disappears, and a man dies in an accident. The story has many twists and turns as Rascal tries to figure out what is going on. I love the setting and learning about Pittsburgh, including an old canal and the underground railway. There is lots of good food along the way, even for Bonkers the cat, and sports mixed in. Makes me feel like I’ve been to Pittsburgh, but I haven’t yet. Rascal is a favorite character along with Bonkers, and I love her relationship with both her boss and boyfriend. I changed my mind more than once about who I thought the killer was, but in the end I was surprised by how it all played out. This is a good cozy mystery that I can easily recommend!