Death at the Museum

Erica Wright, Knoxville resident and author of eight books, including 2024’s Hollow Bones, takes readers to Wyndale, Florida, in her latest whodunit, The Museum of Unusual Occurrence.

As novel opens, we meet Alcyone “Aly” Orlean, a 20-something skeptic who runs the oddities museum of the title. Aly has a lot on her plate. In addition to her duties at what she calls the “MoUO, pronounced ‘mow·you·oh’ for short,” she takes care of her poetry-loving teenage sister, Merope, and tries to find some kind of balance for her own life, which isn’t going as planned. Aly and Merope’s parents are gone: Their father is dead, and their mother is living her best life in the big city of Tampa. 

As difficult as Aly’s situation sounds, it gets worse — much, much worse. She comes upon the body of a local, Rose Dempsey, in her museum, and with some intentionally placed flower petals, quarters, and blood, it’s clear that there hasn’t just been a death on her property. There has been a murder. 

As the news of the murder spreads, Aly realizes that Bud Carmichael, the local detective and her childhood friend, won’t be able to solve the crime on his own, so she decides to help figure out who could have killed Rose. 

From here, Wright spins a clever web of intrigue, as the cast expands to include a list of possible suspects. We meet beloved town figures, a previous mentor, a sort-of celebrity boyfriend, and others. Each one adds a smart level of layering to the overall narrative.

While the central mystery is suspenseful — and, honestly, quite fun — it’s the world-building throughout The Museum of Unusual Occurrence that makes this mystery soar. The museum is such a clever construct, mixing a bit of the supernatural with a lot of amusement. It’s the kind of place I immediately wanted to visit after finishing this book. Also, Wyndale itself is a fascinating place to spend time. It began as a small town “founded by true believers, mostly Christians longing for proof that they would reunite with their loved ones again,” but it’s now a tourist attraction for the occult-curious, with a Welcome Center that sells “teddy bears in little witch hats” and gives “palm readings for twenty dollars a pop.” 

Aly paints the contradictions of the town throughout. In one passage, for example, she describes it as “pretty,” noting the beauty of the trees and Spanish moss. She mentions a popular rumor about “birds avoiding the place,” then quickly points out that it’s not true:

Beyond the crows parading our town square, mourning doves coo every sunrise and sunset, geese holler past on their way farther south, and cardinals flitter about cypress. They say cardinals carry the spirits of the dead. They say a lot of things, though.

 Aly’s brand of dry humor lightens the darker tension of the murder.

While The Museum of Unusual Occurrence will likely delight fans of the genre, the book doesn’t function solely as a mystery novel. There is also a well-developed sibling story in these pages — one that focuses on the power of this special bond and how love and care guide so many of our actions. In truth, even with a murder to be solved, kindness floats near this story’s core. 

Whether readers are skeptics, believers, or the kind who just want a novel about a family trying to do the best they can for one another, Erica Wright’s The Museum of Unusual Occurrence offers multitudes.