A local artist has been murdered in Rockport and the town's reference librarian is quickly pegged by townspeople and police as the chief suspect in the crime.
Welcome to the fictional world of High Street resident and former, longtime Rockport librarian Gunilla Caulfield.
Caulfield's new, self-published novel "Murder on Bearskin Neck" was released Nov. 9 and employs many real Rockport locations as backdrops for the story, the first in a planned series of mystery novels featuring the reference librarian turned sleuth character, Annie Quitnot (pronounced "quit not," as in don't stop).
"Many real locations in Rockport are used, though fictitiously," Caulfield said of the 320-page book, which she said took abut a year to write.
"Sometimes I take artistic liberty and alter reality a bit," she said. "I'm sure Rockporters will notice and harass me about that ... historical figures, when included, are an exception and I try to stick to the facts or legends about them."
Caulfield has lived in Rockport permanently since the early 1970s.
"Well, what better location could one want for a mystery?" she adds.
In the book, artist Carlo Valenti is murdered and fingers begin to be pointed toward Annie Quitnot because, as recently as five years earlier, the two were romantically involved. Then Valenti left for Rome, only to return with a new woman on his arm.
Townsfolk suspect Quitnot, because jealousy is a strong motive and Quitnot has no alibi. But with help from the library's sympathetic director and her brother, Quitnot works to solve the murder and acquit herself — but only seems to get herself into deeper trouble.
Though Quitnot is the reference librarian at Rockport Public Library, Caulfield said she did not base the character on herself. Quitnot is an unmarried redhead of Irish-Italian-English extraction, while Caulfield is a Swedish immigrant with a family.
But the pair do have a few things in common.
"A stubborn trait and an irritating compulsion to find answers to trivial questions, for instance," Caulfield said. "Also, we are both Shakespeare fans — although I have to admit that Annie is more knowledgeable on the subject than I am."
Though the characters in the novel are fictional, real family and friends played an instrumental role in helping Caulfield produce the final product.
Her son, Mark Kanegis, a Rockport artist and owner of Kanegis Gallery on Bearskin Neck, designed the book's cover. It features an eerie photo of the iconic Motif No. 1 fish shack shot by Kanegis several years ago that was retouched to produce an even gloomier image for the cover.
"I've had that photo of Mark's in my work room for a couple of years," Caulfield said. "When I started thinking of a cover, I knew that's what I wanted to use. The mood is great, sort of dark and a little ominous."
Caulfield dedicated the book to longtime friend and former Rockport Public Library director Stephen Rask, among others. Caulfield said that, if she never stepped into the Kieran Room down in the old Carnegie Library building in 1989 and bumped into Rask, there would never have been Annie Quitnot.
"Steve Rask has to take a large share of the responsibility for my Cape Ann mysteries; his enthusiasm for our library was so contagious that I immediately wanted to be part of it, and shortly afterwards I started working at the Carnegie," she said. "My kids said I was computer-phobic, which may have been true, but Steve encouraged us and sent us to seminars to learn.
"Back then, I was using an old Olivetti to type with, and I can't even imagine how you could ever revise a manuscript that way," she added. "So, I'm grateful to Steve for pushing me."
Locally, the book is available at Toad Hall Bookstore in Rockport, and at the Dogtown Book Shop and The Bookstore, both in Gloucester. It's also listed on Amazon.com.
Caulfield doesn't plan to slow down any time soon.
Other works she hopes to soon have published include two novels and a collection of short stories, while works in progress for later publication, she says, are sequels to "Murder on Bearskin Neck" with Annie Quitnot as sleuth, and a book of Christmas stories.
"My books tend to take about a year each to write, sometimes less," Caulfield said. "Of course, each time I got through a manuscript — until the day it is published — I edit. And edit. And edit.
"And I don't keep the earlier versions," she said. "Ugh, the embarrassment."
Jonathan L'Ecuyer can be reached at 978-283-7000 x 3451 or jlecuyer@gloucestertimes.com.
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