Out of the Picture

Museum of Mysteries #6

by Margaret Welch

Scarlett McCormick, head curator of the Reed Museum of Art and Archaeology, develops an idea for a reunion art exhibit with Allie Preston, her best friend and manager of the museum coffee shop. Based on a previous exhibit, the show will feature the same local artists from Crescent Harbor, California. Now all they need to do is find them.

Scarlett is shocked to learn that one of the artists perished in a fire at the Phoenix restaurant twelve years ago. She’s even more shocked when she sees the photos Allie discovered from a secondhand camera. A man with an uncanny resemblance to the artist appears in a recent picture at the restaurant where he supposedly died.

As Scarlett and Allie search for the remaining artists, they also investigate the puzzling case of the doppelgänger. But their inquiries are met with hostility and threats, and they fear the truth will never be exposed.

Someone will stop at nothing to keep Scarlett and Allie from solving the mystery. Will the two friends succeed? Or will they be permanently cut out of the picture?

Hardcover

About the author

Pseudonym for Molly MacRae.

Bio

Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore; may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.

MacRae lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she recently retired from connecting children with books at the public library.
Bibliography and Awards
Novels

Argyles and Arsenic, Pegasus Books, March 2022
Heather and Homicide, Pegasus Books, December 2020
Thistles and Thieves, Pegasus Books, January 2020
Crewel and Unusual, Pegasus Books, January 2019
For Letter or Worse (writing as Margaret Welch), Annie’s Fiction, 2018
Scones and Scoundrels, Pegasus Books, January 2018
The Grim Reader (writing as Margaret Welch), Annie’s Fiction, 2017
Plaid and Plagiarism, Pegasus Books, December 2016
Knot the Usual Suspects, NAL/Obsidian, September 2015
Plagued by Quilt, NAL/Obsidian, November 2014
Spinning in Her Grave, NAL/Obsidian, March 2014
Dyeing Wishes, NAL/Obsidian, July 2013
Last Wool and Testament, NAL/Obsidian, September 2012
Lawn Order, Five Star Mysteries/Cengage, December 2010
Wilder Rumors, Five Star Mysteries/Cengage, May 2007

Short Stories

“Junk Food,” in Cooked to Death, Nodin Press, July 2016
My Troubles (collection of Margaret & Bitsy stories) Darkhouse Books, December 2014
“Cookies,” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (AHMM) June 2008
“A Walk in the Park,” Hardluck Stories, Summer 2007
“Wilder Dancing,” Mysterical-E, Summer 2007
“Practically Perfect,” Doses of Death, Lulu, 2005
“Fandango by Flashlight,” AHMM, December 2005
“It Takes Two,” AHMM, February 2002
“No Can Do,” AHMM, July/August 2001
“Ah, Paradise,” AHMM, November 2000
“Missing Something,” AHMM, May 2000
“Speaking Terms,” AHMM, April 1991
“My Trouble,” January 1990

Nonfiction

“Buzzing with Stories: A Visit with Author, Librarian, Teacher Janice N. Harrington,” Children and Libraries, Vol 19, No 4 (2021)
“Wilder Rumors,” an essay in the “New Books” section of Mystery Scene, issue 100, 2007
“Book Pusher: My Life in and out of Fiction,” Mystery Readers Journal, Fall 2005
Humor, Rumor, and Romance in Old Jonesborough, Overmountain Press, 1991 (editor)

Mystery Theater

Interactive dinner plays available through Positive Solutions Through Stories and Tours
“The Dead of Winter Murder Mystery”
“Daggers and Old Lace”
“Murder in Little Chicago”

Awards

2015 Lovey Award for Best Paranormal for Plagued by Quilt
2013 Lovey Award for Best Paranormal for Last Wool and Testament
2012 Suspense Magazine’s Best of 2012 for Last Wool and Testament
2001 Virginia Highlands Creative Writing Contest, first prize for novel, Wilder Rumors
2000 Sherwood Anderson Award for short fiction for “More or Less”

Reviews

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is written by many different authors.

This author is not one of my favorites.

[Victoria Marie Lees · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of the Picture by Margaret Welch is one of the Museum Mysteries solved by amateur detective Scarlett McCormick, the curator of Reed Museum of Art and Archaeology in California. Of course, McCormick has help from a cast of original characters to solve an old crime that threatens to happen again. The story centers in the art world and what happened in a fire twelve years ago. My favorite character is elderly Mabel Algren, who notices everything—and remembers. Algren’s artwork sounds vibrant and alive.

Welch keeps the tension up in this cozy and the clues coming throughout. Each character is unique, which helps the reader distinguish who is who. It gives the reader a fair chance to find the culprit before McCormick does. I couldn’t do it. Welch answers all the story questions for the reader by the end. Always great for a cozy.

If you’re looking for a good read, then Out of the Picture by Margaret Welch is the novel for you. Enjoy!

[Melmo2610 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun mystery! It had me all kinds of curious at how this one was going to be solved and how the pieces would finally fit. I also liked that there were several spots where I laughed out loud-this one seemed a bit funnier than the earlier books in the series. Great ending!

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the book, it kept my interest all the way thru.