An art thief teams up with an unlikely ally in order to track down a bloodthirsty artist before she becomes the killer's next muse.
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After serving time in a foreign prison for art theft, Kirby McKinley returns home only to be tempted by one...
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*** EDITING chapters 1-5 as of 6/22 ***
After serving time in a foreign prison for art theft, Kirby McKinley returns home only to be tempted by one last heist.
And this time, the job is personal.
But the simple heist goes awry when she pushes her luck and runs into the museum's gorgeous artist-in-residence, a forensic artist who is reconstructing a facial sketch from a mysterious skull. Kirby recognizes the unidentified person as a model her dead ex-girlfriend often hired and she drags the forensic artist along on an unofficial, slightly illegal tour through the museum's locked storage areas to show her. But before the two can part ways, they stumble upon the rest of the body.
More dead models begin to show up in twisted tableaus of her ex's paintings and Kirby becomes entangled in a murder mystery that forces her to confront her past. But the forensic artist also has a few mysteries of her own and they must work together to track down the killer before Kirby becomes the muse in the final composition.
SKULLDUGGERY blends dark mystery and thriller with sapphic romance and a little bit of mafia
Content Warnings: violence, gore, sex, murder/death, mentions of suicide, desecration of a corpse, forensic material, cadavers, mafia kidnapping, alcohol consumption, drugging, smoking
PLAYLIST favs:
Erode - TENDER
Le parole lontane - Måneskin
Slow Dive - CLAVVS
Com'è buia la città - Caterina Caselli
Parenthesis - Tricky, The Antlers
Gold Dust Woman - Fleetwood Mac
Bone - So Below
and some of my favorite Sicilian folk songs referenced in the story:
Cu ti lu dissi? (great covers by Kaalat, Richiesta da Cristallo)
Ciuri Ciuri
Amuri Amuri
Stay tuned for updates and add the story to your library for new chapter notifications!
And if you'd like to read up on the disturbing case(s) that inspired Skullduggery, Reuters did a lengthy investigation on the body trade:
