Wednesday, January 03, 2018

Murder Past Due

Murder Past Due. Miranda James. 2010. 294 pages. [Source: Borrowed]

First sentence: A hurricane slammed through my kitchen this morning, and his name was Justin.

Premise/plot: Murder Past Due is the first in the A Cat In The Stacks mystery series. Charlie is a librarian who works as an archivist in the university's rare books collection. He's lucky: he gets to bring his cat, Diesel to work. In fact, Diesel almost always goes everywhere with him. He inherited his house from his aunt, and he runs a boarding house. Justin is one of his boarders.

Soon after the novel opens, readers learn that a best selling mystery/thriller writer is returning. Charlie went to school with him--both high school and college--and the two weren't exactly friends. Far from it. It seems EVERYONE in town has a past with Godfrey Priest--for better or worse.

My thoughts: I loved this one. I did. I loved meeting Charlie and Diesel. I enjoyed the setting--a small university town. I liked the unpacking of the mystery--following the clues. Charlie may be an amateur when it comes to detecting, but, he's good at research. I was a bit surprised at who committed the murder. And that's not a bad thing.

© 2018 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

1 comment:

Beth G. said...

A cozy mystery set in a library and featuring a cat? How is this not already on my TBR?