Museums and mystery go hand is hand, like crime and cop. Never does a museum exist without a mystery revolving around it. Every article placed in a museum carries a history with it which makes you go back in time and reciprocate on the life that once was. A life that is beyond one's imagination, especially due to modernisation. For those who love thrillers and mysteries, a museum is a delight. I am someone like that and every city that I visit, I make it a point to visit the famous museums of that city.
My fascination drove me to write my very first novel. Titled as “Columbina”, this book is based set against the most brutal prisons of all times, “Alcatraz”. This prison currently functions as a museum and draws a number of visitors every year. A murder takes place along the shores of this museum. Detective Martin Herd is hired to solve the mystery that would require re-opening the prison’s hidden secret. With just a key found in the corpse’s pocket, Martin has to untangle the chords and find the murderer whose past is buried in the prison walls.
A number of interesting books have been set against museums. Here is my pick, (Every book mentioned below is in one way or the other connected to “Columbina”.)
The Da Vinci Code: The 2003 bestseller by Dan Brown has every single reason to top the list of museum thrillers. After a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris, symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu are summoned to decipher the mystery which in turn pulls them into a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Die.
The Lost Van Gogh: Author A.J. Zerries’s novel revolving around the theft of Vincent Van Gogh’s Portrait of Monsieur Trabuc is a must read. The book is based on a piece of art that gets stolen from a famous museum.
Relic: Set against the popular New York Museum of Natural History, Douglas Preston’s famous novel titled, “Relic” is a thriller that is based on the savage murders of visitors in the museum’s dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human.
The Bone Vault: In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exquisite Temple of Dendur, a controversial new exhibit is fiercely opposed by many among the upper echelon of museum donors. Incidentally, a young museum researcher has been murdered and her body is shipped to the Met in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. This crime thriller written by Linda Fairstein cannot be missed.
The Murder Room: The 2003 detective novel written by P.D. James is set in the Dupayne Museum on the edge of Hampstead Heath in the London Borough of Camden. The Dupayne Museum is an eclectic collection of English memorabilia from the period between World War I and World War II. The Murder Room of the title refers to a room displaying relics of murders that occurred during these years. A murder in this room leads to the summoning of Commander Dalgleish to investigate.
Which book are you going to pick up next to place in your book shelf? Anyone from above? Do the above Museum-thrillers excite you? Do you love history and the vicious circle that it is surrounded with? They why not pick up, India’s first ever Double Header Book, “Frozen Summer and Columbina”, written by Geetha Madhuri and Me.
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