Victoria Gilbert – A Murder for the Books
Paperback: 336 pages (28 December 2017)
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
ISBN: 978-1683314394 (HB)
Amy Webber was a librarian at Clarion University but after finding her boyfriend in a compromising position she leaves both the University and him (he is on the Faculty). Now she is living with her aunt and working in a small town library.
The small town is Taylorsford (a very small town which is basically one main road with an out of town shopping development) and she is happy getting to know her regulars – one of whom is Doris Virts, who is suffering from dementia. When she goes missing, Amy and her assistant Sunny keep an eye out for her and when Amy’s new neighbour Richard Muir asks to see the library archive, they find the body of elderly Doris Virts. Who would want to kill an old lady and why was she in the library archive anyway?
This is a fun mystery with a romance (you can guess from the start that Amy is very likely to hook up with the handsome Richard). In fact there are two mysteries – the murder of Doris Virts in the present day and an old case where Eleanora Cooper was accused of killing her husband but found not guilty when articles by Richard’s Great-Uncle swayed public opinion outside the town in her favour.
This is the first in a series and there is a lot of scene setting but it is well done and they are all interesting characters from Aunt Lydia (who may have secrets Amy doesn’t yet know about) to the County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy (Bradley Tucker) – Taylorsfords most eligible bachelor but rebuffed by Amy and dumped by Sunny.
This is the start of what promises to be a nice enjoyable cosy series which I will follow.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via NetGalley, for review.