WRITTEN IN STONE

A visit to an artist’s studio is both a pleasure and a port into yet another murder case for Delaney Nichols, a Kansas woman living in Scotland.

Moving to Edinburgh has changed Delaney’s life. She loves her work at the Cracked Spine bookshop, her marriage to pub owner Tom, and the friends who’ve helped solve so many murders. Now she’s thrilled to have received a coveted invitation to visit the studio of reclusive artist Ryory Bennigan. Ryory’s carved stones are inspired by the Picts, who lived in Scotland between the years 300 and 900, and about whom little is known except that they were tattooed and often as redheaded as Delaney. Soon after Delaney and Tom arrive at Ryory’s studio, his zealous assistant, Ani, shows out his previous visitor, who introduces himself as Adam Pace. In quite a coincidence, he turns out to be a professor at Delany’s alma mater, the University of Kansas. When Delaney and Tom enter Ryory’s studio, the heavily tattooed artist gives them a chance to carve some stone of their own, and all goes well until Ani becomes ill and Delaney calls for an ambulance. The chance meeting with Adam Pace soon involves Delaney in questions about his attempts to hawk dinosaur bones and a carved stone he claims is Pictish all over town—and, later, questions about what these activities had to do with his suspicious death. Determined to help Inspector Winters, with whom she has a warm relationship, Delaney gets in touch with a friend at the university who reluctantly admits that the professor created some of the dinosaur bones himself on a 3-D printer. It takes a great deal of digging for Delaney to come up with suspects, but her skills are well honed, and her friends add their own expertise in the search for a killer.

Intriguing information on the Picts adds gravitas to the complex mystery.