Award for The Eleventh Commandment

“The well-woven story and tightly-knitted clues embedded in this narrative, as well as the extraordinary development of the characters, will keep readers who love historical mysteries reading well into the night without putting this down until the last page…. Mary Burns, the author of “The Eleventh Commandment” is to be commended for her adept skill in historical mystery writing and this should be the next one on anyone’s list who admires the likes of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series of books. An excellent read full of rich language, spot-on research, and ambient settings which will sweep a reader away to the scorching desert and caves of Moab.”

The Historical Fiction Company 2023 Best Historical Mystery Award — Silver Medal

Click here to buy a print copy or e-book.     

Click here to watch the trailer!

Available Now! Mystery #5!

The Light in the Garden

John Singer Sargent has fled Paris after the debacle of “Madame X”, the painting that destroyed his reputation—but he begins to heal and paint again in the Cotswolds village of Broadway. There, in a Bohemian enclave of American and British artists, writers, illustrators, poets and actors, he begins to create a painting that will make him famous once again—the luminous portrait of two little girls in a garden: “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”.

But all is not well in the garden, and when the mysterious death of “the blue bird” and other strange incidents occur, John calls on his old friend Violet Paget to travel down to Broadway and help solve the mystery. Violet is happy to leave London after her “tell-all” novel Miss Brown has led to her being shunned by the people she didn’t think she was exposing…but she finds new friends in Broadway while the simple mystery turns into a much more complex one when a dead body is discovered in the garden.

This is the fifth mystery in the John Singer Sargent/Violet Paget Mysteries series.

Click here to see the video trailer for The Light in the Garden



Please use the links on this website on the BOOK LIST page to get directed to the correct edition of any of my books (there have been past editions by other publishers which say “Out of Print”). Thanks!

Please send a comment or question!