Valerie Keogh’s The Librarian
© Boldwood Books
The Librarian is a well-written psychological thriller by Valerie Keogh featuring, Ava, a librarian for the Tate Modern, who is being stalked (possibly) and set up (probably) by an unknown perpetrator who wants to (definitely) destroy her life. One should not judge a book by its cover and one should not assume a librarian cannot face peril and danger.
Ava’s problems start when she goes out to meet her best friend, Poppy, at a restaurant/bar in London. There she meets a good-looking guy who asks her to have a drink with him. She turns him down after deciding there is something off about him, no matter how good-looking she finds him. This slight elicits the response, “You’ll be sorry.”
It is that catchphrase that will haunt Ava throughout the novel, when anything bad happens, she decides it must be “Bistro Man" who is causing her so many problems. But is it? We also discover that Ava has a secret, that is slowly revealed as the narrative progresses and it seems that secret is haunting her.
The more we learn about Ava, the more we realize that she chose the path of a librarian, either consciously or subconsciously to keep her head low and herself on a quiet path; but what Ava doesn’t seem to understand is that sometimes, no matter how good you try to be, trouble will find you.
Ava decides not to wait for the police to investigate everything. Her inquisitiveness works well to uncover more clues that propel the narrative toward its conclusion. While she would like to trust the police, her secret prompts her not always to share all the information, partially because she is afraid they will think she is crazy and partially because she feels she is being karmically punished for the past. The victim-as-investigator trope works well to increase the stakes of our protagonist and make us care about her even more as she heads straight into a living nightmare.
The author Valerie Keogh describes herself as a “pantser.” If you have not taken a writing course, then you might not be familiar with the terminology. Basically, there are two main types of writers, one camp outlines everything, knows every event that will happen in a novel, and knows the end before they write one word. The second type of writer writes by the seat of her pants, hence, pantser. She has an idea, starts writing, and isn’t always sure where her novel will take her. Ironically, Keogh’s novel reads like she has plotted out every step along the way, and this is a good thing. The story's pace pushes the narrative forward until the explosive conclusion. It is definitely worth the read.