Portrait of a Murder

Join this accidental sleuth, Nick Morris, in his first mystery in The Art of Murder series.

Nick Morris is your classic struggling artist. He paints pet portraits to pay the bills but is always just one big commission away from a more comfortable life. Which is why he agrees to paint the reluctant, hot-tempered hotelier, Jason Robart. But Nick gets more than he bargained for when he finds Jason dead from a shotgun blast to the head in an apparent suicide.

No one seems upset about his death except for his girlfriend Elizabeth, and Nick, who has lost the income from the commission. It turns out Jason owed money to everyone - including some unsavoury Russians.

When Elizabeth goes missing, Nick is concerned, but so is Jason’s unpleasant business partner and those persuasive Russians who threaten Nick to reveal everything he knows . . . or else! Nick is knee deep in trouble and to escape he must find Elizabeth, uncover the truth of Jason’s death, and stay alive. If only he had stuck to painting cats . . .

Michael Jecks is the author of more than forty-six novels in the Knights Templar medieval mystery series and seven Bloody Mary Tudor mysteries. This is the first book in his contemporary mystery series The Art of Murder. A former Chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association, he lives with his wife, children and dogs in northern Dartmoor.