Book Review: The Spook in the Stacks by Eva Gates

Lighthouse Library Mystery Book 4

Halloween in North Carolina’s Outer Banks becomes seriously tricky when librarian Lucy Richardson stumbles across something extra unusual in the rare books section: a dead body.

Wealthy businessman Jay Ruddle is considering donating his extensive collection of North Carolina historical documents to the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, but the competition for the collection is fierce. Unfortunately, while the library is hosting a lecture on ghostly legends, Jay becomes one of the dearly departed in the rare books section. Now, it’s up to Lucy Richardson and her fellow librarians to bone up on their detective skills and discover who is responsible for this wicked Halloween homicide.

Meanwhile, very strange things are happening at the library—haunted horses are materializing in the marsh, the lights seem to have an eerie life of their own, and the tiny crew of a model ship appears to move around when no one is watching. Is Lucy at her wit’s end? Or can it be that the Bodie Island Lighthouse really is haunted?

With The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on everyone’s minds and ghoulish gossip on everyone’s lips, Lucy will need to separate the clues from the boos if she wants to crack this case without losing her head in The Spook in the Stacks, the delightful fourth in national bestseller Eva Gates’ Lighthouse Library mysteries.

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My Review:

I didn’t see that ending coming at all. I can’t say it was completely out of nowhere, yet there wasn’t much to suggest to the reader that this might have been the direction the story was going. I can safely say that there were so many zany antics going on that I probably missed the clues anyway. I love that we’ve seen the end of the love triangle, but I’m highly frustrated by Lucy’s vacillating over whether or not she even wants this relationship. The addition of true paranormal elements is interesting. I haven’t made up my mind if I like it. There were a surprising lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes that pulled me out of the story. I expect better quality from the major publishing houses who have a staff of people who are supposed to catch these things. However, it’s not going to keep me from reading more of this series. I read a borrowed copy of this book.

Other books in the series:

By Book or By Crook (A Lighthouse Library Mystery 1)

Booked for Trouble (A Lighthouse Library Mystery 2)

Reading Up a Storm (A Lighthouse Library Mystery 3)