Books by Author Mary F. Burns: Sargent/Paget Historical Mystery Series

by Mary F. Burns
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5 books
John Singer Sargent and his childhood friend Violet Paget (aka writer Vernon Lee) have become amateur sleuths, focusing their artistic and literary sensibilities to solve various murders and crimes that fall in their way. Set initially in 1877, the series continues every few years as we see John and Violet become famous, each in their own way, in the arts and letters society of late Victorian England. As historical fiction, the characters are presented in places and with people that are true to their lives; their circle of friends included such notables as Henry James, the pre-Raphaelite artists, Claude Monet and other French impressionists. The two friends frequently met in various cities and towns throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, where the stories are set: London, Paris, Venice, Rome. All the books are set as dual-time mysteries, where the current murder or crime is somehow connected to events or people from decades or centuries before on the same spot—and the two stories are intricately intertwined to discover the final resolution. The books are narrated in the first-person voice of Violet Paget, who is the “Sherlock” part of this duo, highly intellectual, mischievous, quirky and courageous—she is well-paired with the more easy-going Singer Sargent—but the two together bring their different by acute styles of observation and interpretation to a harmonious blend in order to solve the mysteries they encounter.
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John Singer Sargent/Violet Paget Mystery Series

The Spoils of Avalon

Mary F. Burns, 2023
The first book, THE SPOILS OF AVALON, opens with the death of a humble clergyman in 1877, which leads Violet and John into a medieval world of saints and kings—including the legendary Arthur—as they follow a trail of relics and antiquities lost since the destruction of Glastonbury Abbey in 1539. Written in alternating chapters between the two time periods, The Spoils of Avalon creates a sparkling, magical mystery that bridges the gap between two worlds that could hardly be more different—the industrialized, Darwinian, materialistic Victorian Age and the agricultural, faith-infused life of a medieval abbey on the brink of violent change at the hands of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell.

The Love for Three Oranges

Mary F. Burns, 2023
The second book, THE LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES, is set in Venice in the dark winter of 1879. John and Violet are afloat in murder amidst secrets and long-held grudges in an ancient palazzo on the Grand Canal, where John’s artist friend Giacomo is first suspected to be the killer. But when the police arrest John, Violet must overcome the forces of evil–both human and supernatural–to find the real killer.

The Unicorn in the Mirror

Mary F. Burns, 2023
The third book: THE UNICORN IN THE MIRROR—It’s Paris in the Spring of 1881: John Singer Sargent’s portraits are garnering praise at the Salon, and Violet Paget is on her way to a literary rendevous in London. But their lives are interrupted by the dramatic murder of a friend, and the theft of a priceless work of art at the Musee de Cluny, where a medieval tapestry may hold the clue to the crime.

The Eleventh Commandment

Mary F. Burns, 2022
The fourth book: THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT—Embroidered from a true and amazing story, this mystery engages John and Violet when it quite literally lands on their doorstep one afternoon in Paris in 1884. Travelling in haste from Paris to Rotterdam and back again, then on to London, the intrepid duo–joined by an old friend from their first case (The Spoils of Avalon)–endeavor to unravel the mysterious circumstances around the death of Moses Shapira, an antiquarian dealer from Jerusalem. He was the purveyor of the infamous “Shapira Scrolls”, 3000-year-old biblical documents that he maintained were an earlier edition of Deuteronomy, the scripture containing the Ten Commandments — but with an extra commandment. Denounced as a forger and con man by the British Museum experts, Shapira left London in disgrace, only to be found shot dead in his hotel room in Rotterdam six months later. That’s where John and Violet pick up the case.

The Light in the Garden

Mary F. Burns, 2023
The fifth book: THE LIGHT IN THE GARDEN — John Singer Sargent has fled Paris after the debacle of “Madame X”, the painting that destroyed his reputation—but he begins to heal and paint again in the Cotswolds village of Broadway. There, in a Bohemian enclave of American and British artists, writers, illustrators, poets and actors, he begins to create a painting that will make him famous once again—the luminous portrait of two little girls in a garden: “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”. But all is not well in the garden, and when the mysterious death of “the blue bird” and other strange incidents occur, John calls on his old friend Violet Paget to travel down to Broadway and help solve the mystery. Violet is happy to leave London after her “tell-all” novel Miss Brown has led to her being shunned by the people she didn’t think she was exposing…but she finds new friends in Broadway while the simple mystery turns into a much more complex one when a dead body is discovered in the garden.