Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh

It was a bizarre pose for beautiful model Sonia Gluck–and her last. For in the draperies of her couch lay a fatal dagger, and behind her murder lies all the intrigue and acid-etched temperament of an artist’s colony. Called in to investigate, Scotland Yard’s Inspector Roderick Alleyn finds his own passions unexpectedly stirred by the fiesty painter Agatha Troy–brilliant artist and suspected murderess. First published in 1938.