Murder By the Book

The writing has improved since the first book (which it the only other I've read of this series at this time), but the mystery was... lacking. There were some nice elements in the structure of the narrative that can be tough to pull off. I'd only recommend to hard core Agatha Christie fans as this particular book is basically an homage to Dame Agatha. The only readers who wouldn't guess the outcome is anyone who has never read a mystery or seen a police drama on TV in the past 20 years.

This is in my Bibliomystery collection, but if it wasn't part of this series, I likely wouldn't include it. I do include it because it is the last (to date) book in a the recurring series characters are part of a reading book club, and that events take show more place in the neighborhood of the bookstore they meet in. Again, the main character, who is allegedly a reference librarian, is only at her library for a paragraph, and that is nearly the only reference to her working in a library. She may as well be a chimney sweep or any other occupation. show less

Librarian Megan Clark is a qualified anthropologist who is a member of a book club who enjoy crime novels. She's been around when several other murders have happened and has got on the nerves of the investigating officers. This time there's a lot of red herrings and a very old murder that seems to have a lot of secrets entwined, and are the new murders and the old murders linked in any way other than being discovered at the same time.
Interesting but not an author I'd go hunting up more books by, if I happened on them I'd read them but I wouldn't make much of an effort for them.

Lots of interesting characters, I figured out the "serial" killer but not the cause of the skeleton.

Bok Charity