Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Fall of Augustus is here!

The book is published and available directly from the publisher as either a trade paperback or an ebook.

This is the second book set in a creepy fourth floor attic museum (very similar to one where I used to work) right in the middle of a move to a new building. Lisa becomes Director of the museum after a falling statue crushes her boss, Victor Fitzgerald. Suddenly she's juggling demands from architects and deans while trying to mount an exhibit, find a murderer, and figure out why her stepson hates school.

The story is loosely based upon the move of an actual museum at the University of Illinois from a fourth floor attic in an old classroom building to a modern facility. The move required lowering heavy plaster casts of Roman and Greek statues down the old elevator shaft. Although I was not present during this interesting exercise, I imagined what might have happened...

As always, it is great fun to borrow from my profession, which is archaeology and museology, and to create characters who remind me of colleagues past and present.

The museum and all of its inhabitants have been moved to my old hometown of Boston to protect the innocent.