A Most Unpleasant Picture

Confirmed bachelor and professional art authenticator Leonard Anderson, long the protégé of aged and wealthy Luella Pryce, is so in love with her early Cartwright paintings that he can?t wait to receive them??as he has been led to believe??in her will. He removes them for cleaning, has them copied, returns the forgeries to Luella and keeps the originals. Then Luella drops a bomb: she tells Leonard she plans to donate her collection to the local gallery on the Caribbean island of St. Napoli on her death. Fearing exposure, as Luella is in poor health, but spurning any notion of switching the paintings back, Leonard arranges with his wicked nephew Tibor to destroy the fakes by burning down Luella?s house while she is away at a gala. But Luella never makes it to the gala. Asleep in her bathtub, she burns along with her house. Authorities blame her careless smoking for the conflagration. But when Leonard suffers disastrous financial losses in the Asian marker, Tibor, who has his own needs for quick cash, presses him to sell the Cartwrights in the shady underworld of art acquisition. To get his nephew off his back, Leonard conspires to once again have copies made of the originals. But Cerise, the daughter of an old paramour and a con artist in her own right, catches him in the act. Not above a little blackmail despite her affection for him, she sells her silence for a very expensive necklace. Leonard, meanwhile, sets up a sting to lead Tibor to believe the original Cartwrights are fakes. The transaction with the buyer will take place at the Pleasant Inn, in eastern Ontario, which is run by the irascible Trevor Rudley and his long-suffering wife Margaret. When the art appraiser dutifully pronounces the Cartwrights to be fakes, Leonard shrugs to Tibor, ?I guess they were all fakes.? Cerise, who knows the truth, slips away to get back to the Caribbean and grab the originals for herself. But, alerted, Tibor follows and sinks her boat, believing that he has killed her. But Cerise is rescued by the police detective Chester Creighton who happens to be on a fishing vacation on a nearby island. Though he breaks her necklace with the engraving on the back??Happy Birthday, Sweetie??he is so charmed by her and the story she concocts, he returns her to the Pleasant Inn where she keeps out of sight and works to get a new passport. But for all her discretion, an alarmed Tibor spots her coming out of the Pleasant?s bunkhouse and determines to finish what he failed at earlier. However, his plan to murder her at the boathouse goes awry when a man claiming to be an Algonquin chief with title to the Pleasant Inn?s land drowns in her stead. Ruled foul play, an investigation ensues, but the redoubtable Elizabeth Miller, frequent Pleasant guest and adept amateur detective, points to a conjunction of events??Cerise?s absence, the Chief?s death, and the chatter of Leonard Anderson?s parrot Betty, which leads Detective Creighton to recollect the engraving on Cerise?s necklace. This and other clues lead the police to a nearby island where they arrest Tibor, who has been keeping his uncle virtual prisoner. Cerise and Leonard, meanwhile, manage to slip away, the police believing Leonard has met with misadventure. However, the pair are headed out to further adventure.

In addition to the popular Rudley Mystery series, which is named for the cantankerous proprietor of The Pleasant Inn, and includes Pleasantly Dead, The Pumpkin Murders, A Most Unpleasant Wedding, Peril at the Pleasant, and Many Unpleasant Returns, Judith Alguire also has two previous novels to her credit, All Out and Iced. Her short stories, articles and essays have appeared in such publications as The Malahat Review and Harrowsmith, and she is a past member of the editorial board of the Kingston Whig-Standard. A graduate of Queen's University, she has recently retired from nursing.