Books Can Be Deceiving: A Library Lover’s Mystery

© Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Books Can Be Deceiving is the first in a series of Jenn McKinlay’s Library Lover’s Mysteries. The series features a recently single librarian, Lindsay Norris, who moves to Briar Creek, CT to become director of the Briar Creek Public Library. Jenn McKinlay writes both the Library Lover’s Mystery series as well as the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries.

Lindsay has just relocated from New Haven after being laid off as a Research Librarian at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Lindsay’s best friend and fellow libarian, Beth Stanley, lives in Briar Creek and serves as the Children’s Librarian at the Briar Creek Public Library. Lindsay is looking for some comfort and safety. Instead, she becomes embroiled in a mystery as soon as she arrives when an author staying on the Thumb Islands just off the coast from Briar Creek winds up dead.

Beth, Lindsay’s friend, is not only a Children’s Librarian, she is an aspiring author whose boyfriend, Rick, is the one found mysteriously murdered. Beth becomes the prime suspect and Lindsay must suddenly conduct her own investigation when the local police chief is satisfied to charge Beth with the murder when all she is truly guilty of is falling for the wrong guy.

Lindsay’s investigate skills are just as good as any armchair detective and she manages to meet any danger headon. This first installment of the series made me want to get the second book before I finished the first one, which for me is always a good sign.

While I enjoyed meeting the new characters in this novel who would clearly be regulars Lindsay’s world, it is the atmosphere that works so well in this novel. I lived near this part of Connecticut for a few years and McKinlay does a masterful job creating how it feels to live in a town on the coast of Connecticut. I found myself actually missing where I had lived (literally a haunted house) and thinking fondly of my time in Connecticut. This series makes the reader want to be friends with Lindsay and help her solve all the mysteries she will be encountering.