Book Review: Buried in the Stacks by Allison Brook
- Kristen Lewendon
- Sep 10, 2019
- 2 min read
The Haunted Library Mysteries Book 3
Librarian Carrie Singleton is building a haven, but one of her neighbors is misbehavin'. Can resident spirit Evelyn help Carrie catch the culprit who made her a ghost?
In winter, the Haunted Library is a refuge for homeless townspeople. When a group purchases a vacant house to establish a daytime haven for the homeless, Carrie offers the library as a meeting place for the Haven House committee, but quickly learns that it may be used for illegal activities.
As the new Sunshine Delegate, Carrie heads to the hospital to visit her cantankerous colleague, Dorothy, who had fallen outside the local supermarket. She tells Carrie that her husband tried to kill her--and that he murdered her Aunt Evelyn, the library's resident ghost, six years earlier.
And then Dorothy is murdered--run off the road as soon as she returns to work. Evelyn implores Carrie to find her niece's killer, but that's no easy task: Dorothy had made a hobby of blackmailing her neighbors and colleagues. Carrie, Evelyn, and Smoky Joe the cat are on the case, but are the library cards stacked against them?
My Review:
I’m enjoying this series, but the individual books just don’t seem to be what I was hoping they would be. This book especially seemed to suffer from having too much of the stuff I didn’t want and not enough of the stuff I did. I like Carrie and I love we’ve gotten to see her “grow up” from where she started book one, but I really don’t need so much of the minutia of her day; such as what she ate, what she’s wearing, what makeup she put on, where she had to find the cat. I’m also having difficulties believing in the library she works for. I realize that many libraries want to be the center of their communities, but this sounds more like it’s set in a Community Centre. Where are the books and the authors? And where the heck does this library get all the money it’s able to spend? There’s a lot of stuff happening in this book, and not very much of it directly impacts on the murder mystery. Fairly early on, by random guess, I’d managed to pick the correct villain and most of the correct motive. Though, I have to give the author credit, I spent most of the book second guessing myself if I’d managed to choose correctly. I just would have liked to see a bit more time spent on the real mystery rather than chasing down wild geese. Did we really need to accompany Carrie while shopping for Angela’s wedding or Dylan’s office? Or to every blessed restaurant in town? Overall, I did enjoy this book and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next. I received a complimentary advanced copy of this book through NetGalley.
Other books in the series:
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