The Vanishing Museum om the Rue Mistral

 by M.L. Longworth

I had to read something a little lighter after The Pull of the Stars so I picked up a little mystery.

The story is set in southern France near Marseilles.  The Musee Quentin-Savary in Aix-Aux-Provence

features some local ceramics and has just been bequeathed a painting by an important painter.  The Director of the museum and his assistant are totally devoted to the museum.

One night they are shocked to find that the entire museum has been cleaned out.  Everything but the reception desk is gone.

Around the same time the apartment of a recently deceased woman has been broken into and while there are valuable things there the only thing take is some ceramic dishes.

There is a judge and a police officer working on solving both cases.  They speculate the cases are connected but the items stolen don't seem to be of great value.  The police interview the museum officials and also one of the two residents of the building.  The man's family owns the building in which the museum is located and I believe he has some claim on the museum but can't remember how.  No one likes this man.  He is pompous and rude.  The police suspect he might have something to do with the theft.  The Directors of the museum are called to the town and it is learned that there was a proposal to merge the museum with one in Marseilles.

One of the humourous parts of the book is the judge.  He likes food and is always thinking about food.  When he finishes breakfast he is thinking about lunch and when he finishes lunch he is thinking about supper so there is lots of talk of french cuisine.

When the museum assistant goes to the museum one morning she finds her boss has been hit on the head and is unconscious and the owner of the museum in Marseilles that proposed the merger is dead. Things are getting serious.

The break in the case comes when one of the police sees a report about a rare Chinese vase selling for a high price at an auction, supposedly one of a set of two vases.  The police officer remembers seeing the vase in apartment of the man who is disliked.  Then we learn that the vase had been in the museum with flowers in it.  No one had realized it was valuable except the dislike man.  It also turns out that some of the ceramics in the museum could be valuable because they were part of a dinner service commissioned by Napoleon.  

The police decide to search the apartment of the other building tenant, who is a travelling salesman. There they discover some of the hidden ceramics.  The tenant is shocked to find police in his apartment when he returns home.  The disliked guy is arrested for the theft and the murder.

It was a light read but the setting in France made it interesting and the quirky officials added to the fun.