Culture Vultures

About the Book

It was not immediately obvious what was wrong. Amanda tutted as she crossed the store room to straighten a small painting which hung at an angle on a rack that had not been replaced properly and projected out into the middle of the floor space by at least eighteen inches.

  'Someone's been in a hurry,' she said and pushed at the end of the rack to slide it back into place. Either Amanda was even more fragile than she appeared or the rails along which the rack should have slid smoothly were badly in need of a drop of oil, for she only managed to push it a few inches before it stuck fast.

  'Let me help,' Pauline offered. Together they pushed at the end of the rack. It budged only slightly.

  'I think there's something jamming it,' Amanda panted.

   'I'll have a look,' said Pauline. 'It might be something caught in the rails - '

  As she spoke, she was squeezing in between the racks, glancing up at the overhead rails, peering into the dark place ahead of me - until she saw what was impeding the movement.

  'Amanda !' she said in a surprisingly calm voice. 'Don't push any more.'

  'Is there something in there? Can you get it out?'

  'Yes. No.'

  Pauline wriggled back into the open and took a deep breath.

Something is badly wrong at the small Scottish museum not far from Edinburgh. The computer system isn’t working and staff morale is at an all-time low, with many inexplicable tensions in the air. Vernon and Dominic, two of the curators, are at loggerheads over the new Deputy Keepership which is in the gift of Euphemia, the larger-than-life Keeper of the Collection. Tony, the head conservator, stirs up dissension wherever he goes. Fergus and Amanda irritate everyone with their romantic interludes, while Fergus dreams of freedom for Scotland. Jennifer, the secretary, has an unhealthy obsession with the state of her cat’s health. Melanie, a sculptor and friend of Euphemia’s, pops up inopportunely from time to time. Pauline, an outsider, can only begin to guess at the complications of all the intertwining relationships. Personality conflicts are one thing but after two members of the staff are murdered and an expert she brings in to help is mysteriously taken ill, she decides the organisation is seriously dysfunctional. She could do without the help of a museum attendant, Mr Geikie, who takes his security duties to extremes and a cook, Mrs McCallum, who seems to be set on poisoning everyone with her dubious fairy-cakes.

And the problems at work are the least of Pauline’s worries. She has an alcoholic husband to support, an irascible boss who doesn’t seem to trust her and a teenage son who alternately worries and comforts her. She doesn’t need the added complication of murder or the subsequent personal danger she finds herself in.

As she approaches a solution, Pauline finds a strange discrepancy between the public face of the museum and its inner workings, a discrepancy that is paralleled in her own life.

About the Author

Sheila Perry is a Scottish writer who has worked in computer programming and museum documentation. As well as crime books she writes the ‘Scary Scotland’ series of children’s stories and also writes and directs plays for the children of a local drama group in Edinburgh. ‘Culture Vultures’ is the first in a series of crime books set mainly in West Lothian and Edinburgh. Sheila’s other interests include family history, which she hopes to turn into a book one day, canal walking and website design. She has also written a self-help book, ‘Handknitted Happiness’ which is based on her life experiences.