New Indie Book Release: Murder for Glacier Blue (Diane Rapp)

New Indie Book Release:
Murder for Glacier Blue - Diane Rapp
Mystery / Suspense (247 pages - August 2013)

"The book combines the suspense of solving a mystery with descriptions of the real places and wildlife seen during a cruise itinerary. There is also a love story with stresses associated with real life but no explicit scenes. Readers learn about the behind-the-scenes lives of the crew members and about the lives of actual artists who painted million-dollar works before 1931."


About the Book

Click to Read an Excerpt

Painted in 1907, “Glacier Blue” is an oil painting recently appraised at 2 million pounds. Reginald C. Pierpont, the artist who created the stunning masterpiece, studied with the Impressionists in Europe and bold visionaries in the Americas. The sole heir to a family fortune, Reggie used his vast holdings and leisure time to experiment with new techniques and daring ideas to create his art. Although the masterpiece failed to turn heads during his own time period, Reggie’s secret method triggers larcenous schemes among modern crooks.

Genuine Fakes, an auction company that sells “authorized copies” of famous paintings, arranges to hold six charity auctions of fakes during a voyage to Alaska. Million-dollar originals will be displayed next to the Genuine Fakes during each auction—six opportunities for international thieves to steal a valuable piece of art. The president of Constellation Cruise Lines, Emily Schultz suddenly needs her new crack security team to guard the paintings.

When one of the fakes gets stolen from the buyer’s cabin, a discrete search for the missing canvas begins. The stakes rise when a body is found next to the missing fake, and the investigation suddenly takes a deadly turn. The investigators learn more about “Glacier Blue” and realize it’s no ordinary work of art. The painting’s special secret already provoked one murder, and it gets easier to kill again.

Emily begs Kayla and Steven to work for a few days before their wedding on Glacier Bay. They expected a stress-free cruise up the Inside Passage of Alaska, filled with glaciers, wildlife, and stunning scenery, but an art heist and murder might interrupt their romantic plans. To ramp up stress levels, Steven’s ex-wife, Cynthia, shows up for the cruise on the arm of Steven’s school chum—and Kayla feels hate-at-first-sight.

The young couple must entertain future in-laws while trying to outsmart murderous outlaws. As the ship navigates through icy waters, truth lies hidden from plain view, like the treacherous underwater portions of dangerous icebergs. Greed, jealousy, and envy generate potent motives for murder.

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Link to the eBook Murder for Glacier Blue on Amazon with Excerpt

About the Author

Author Diane Rapp

Diane Rapp became an entrepreneur when she started her own dog grooming salon in Santa Barbara, California. She spent the next thirty years as a small business owner; she sold real estate, started an office supply store in Telluride, Colorado, and performed free-lance advertising design.

During all those years Diane wrote stories as a cure for insomnia. She wrote short stories about dogs for a German Shepherd Dog Club newsletter, and then expanded to full length novels. After Diane and her daughter Laura co-authored a travel guidebook entitled Cruising the Eastern Caribbean (four editions were published by Hunter Publishing), Laura gave Diane the idea of writing a mystery set on cruise ships in the Caribbean. The High Seas Mystery series was born.

Diane also enjoys writing science fiction. The Heirs to the Throne trilogy follows a crew of spacer refugees as they forge a new life on the backward planet Drako, raise children, and face danger.

Connect with Diane Rapp via Twitter: @DianeRapp
or the Author's Website.