by Peter Gooch, 2025
Seren is a mystery set in the art world of 1970s Detroit. Many mysteries, murder and otherwise, as it turns out.
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A famous and elderly painter, Norris Bainbridge, passed away 6 months ago. His final painting, a 7-ft wide by 5-ft high landscape, was a masterpiece far and beyond anything the painter had ever produced. He finished the painting the day before he died. But there was something else. There is an unmistakable imprint of a woman’s nipple in the upper left corner of the paint. So there’s that.
Art collector and gallery owner Fairchild Moss, who was also Bainbridge’s agent, has come into possession of this masterpiece. He refuses to display it or put it up for sale until he solves the “how” and the “why” of that painting and that curious imprint. The novel opens as this particular puzzle is making him crazy.
There is a rumor of a woman. A muse who may have inspired Bainbridge to greatness in his last months. Moss is determined to find out if the rumor is true, and if so to meet her to get some questions answered. Her name is Seren.
Moss himself once aspired to be a painter and showed great promise coming out of grad school. But his talents as an artist plateaued and then seemed to evaporate—or at least his confidence did. His ambitions were abandoned, never producing another painting after he was 30 years old. Instead, he stayed in the art world by becoming a successful dealer rather than a producer of art. He hadn’t picked up a paintbrush now in years.
Moss took an early summer sabbatical to his grandmother’s property in northern Michigan, and the landscape by Bainbridge came with him, thus safeguarding it from being either sold or stolen. The former lakeside retreat owned by his grandmother, and now by him, had since been renovated into an architectural dream of contemporary style. Along with the sleek living quarters was an outbuilding that was converted into a painter’s studio decades earlier. This studio housed all Moss’ abandoned canvases, cans of paint, brushes, easels, and other artist paraphernalia. At the time, his grandmother had been his biggest fan and supporter, giving him everything he needed to succeed. Every time he visited the property, he acutely felt how much he had let her down.
Claudine and Marylou, two lifelong friends of Moss’, paid a surprise visit to him while he was sojourning there. Partly to deliver some art world gossip, and partly to lay eyes on this lakeside cabin they’d heard about but never been invited to. Moss had always found Claudine attractive, but being that she was “mostly gay,” he kept a respectful distance. However, the attraction between them ramped up on this visit. At the end of the weekend when Marylou had to be dropped off at the airport, Claudine surprised Moss again by returning to the cabin rather than continuing home to Detroit. Thus started a warm and mutual relationship rooted in their long-term friendship. And through Claudine’s encouragement, Moss begins to paint again.
A flamboyant, British, and well-known artist who Moss despised, called Maurice Haller, had an upcoming exhibit at the Tate Gallery in London. As plans for the exhibit were gearing up, Haller disappeared. Then just days before the exhibit’s opening, the art world was shocked to learn of his death—he was discovered face down in the River Derwent in Derbyshire, England.
The model and muse Seren was again associated with Haller in his last days. The pair were inseparable, and he produced dozens of portraits of her. Moss began to wonder about the coincidence of two hugely talented artists meeting their end in the company of this enigmatic portrait model.
Claudine is called to Paris for a modeling opportunity of her own, and Moss goes along for support. With the death of Haller, Seren is also in Paris, modeling for a new client. Moss and Seren cross paths and he finally gets the chance to question her about Bainbridge’s last days and also Haller’s. Her unsatisfactory answers lead him down a dangerous path that could guarantee he follows in these men’s footsteps, destroying his new-found happiness, his reignited artistic talents, or even his life.
Seren is Peter Gooch’s first novel, on the heels of several published shorter works. If I have any criticisms at all, my first one would be that, this being a murder mystery, Haller’s murder doesn’t occur until page 223, or almost two-thirds of the way through the book (Bainbridge’s death is never truly fleshed out as a murder). As someone who has read hundreds of murder/crime novels, the reader is accustomed to the crime happening quite early in the story line. I kept reading, and reading, and reading…waiting for this elusive murder to take place. I felt that the character development between Moss, Claudine, and other minor characters, while excellent, took much too long and could have been edited considerably.
Second, with Seren being the main suspect, we still never learn enough about her. On the surface she presented as a rude, unlikeable shrew that I couldn’t imagine any man falling for, much less deciding she was his muse. What was the attraction? I couldn’t see it. To me she wasn’t a believable character, certainly no muse who would inspire greatness in anyone. I felt the author could have written her a bit more realistically, to help us understand why three different men fell under her spell.
Perhaps you’ll read this novel and disagree. And that would be great! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this book. This is your opportunity to read a brand-new author in long form and voice your opinion. Please check out Seren, then come back here and tell me what you think.
