Death on a Starry Night

When art historian Nora Barnes returns to France for a Van Gogh conference in the charming medieval village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, she’s expecting a vigorous debate about whether the famed artist’s suicide was actually a homicide. But on the night before the conference, an elderly French woman who’d promised to reveal important evidence is found head down in the village fountain, and her Chanel briefcase is nowhere to be seen.
During a week of academic squabbling, dining, romance, and suspense, the quirky conference members, one by one, fall under police suspicion and the amused gaze of Nora’s husband, Toby. But someone wants to halt Nora and Toby’s amateur sleuthing, and what happens next is no joke.

Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden are coauthors of the mysteries Murder in Lascaux andThe Body in Bodega Bay, the first two novels in the Nora Barnes and Toby Sandler Mystery series. They also coauthored the memoirA Castle in the Backyard: The Dream of a House in France and translated The Walnut Cookbook by Jean-Luc Toussaint. They are professors emeriti of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Long ago, Michael worked a summer as a waiter in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and fell in love with the village.