Murder Past Due: 06/13/18

Murder Past Due by Miranda James (pseudonym of Dean James) is the start of the Cat in the Stacks series. Charlie Harris works in the rare books and archive at the university in Athena, Mississippi. He brings his Maine coon cat, Diesel with him to work. His university is offered the papers of a local murder mystery author and Charlie is tasked with deciding if it should be accepted and then, inventorying and cataloging the donation.

The author, though, ends up having a checkered past. When he ends up dead, Charlie begins to realize that the motive behind the murder might be in the donated papers and manuscripts.

Character-wise, I'm reminded of Lillian Jackson Braun's Cat Who series. There, the main character was a writer, not a librarian, but otherwise he's of similar age and temperament.

In terms of plot and the revelation of clues reminds me of the Goldie Bear Culinary mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson. The clues come in a mixture of character studies and allowing the main character do his job.

The second book in the series is Classified as Murder and I have it on hand to listen to soon.

Four stars

Comments (2)

Comment #1: Monday, July 02, 2018 at 21:48:18

MarthaE

This is another book/library related mystery I think I would like. :-)

Comment #2: Monday, July 02, 2018 at 22:13:00

Pussreboots

Now this one is the start of the series. I've now read the second one and I enjoyed it too. I think you will like it.