MoonglotexasKa’s Review:
Another enjoyable episode in this charming cozy mystery series. Well Done Katie Gayle.
The key characters are just so likeable and it’s lovely to see the various relationships continue to evolve as the story progresses, A little romance (with the Sean Connery lookalike) for this more mature protagonist continues to make me smile. Then there’s that labrador. What would Julia (or us as readers) do without him?
This plotline felt a bit of a stretch and I’m hoping the next one will be a little more plausible BUT I love the quirkiness of this team (Kate and Gayle) so will eagerly watch out for it I give it FIVE out of FIVE on the enjoyment scale.!!!
Kel’s Review:
It’s back to the Cotswolds and the wonderful characters of Katie Gayle’s Julia Bird Mysteries. “Murder in the Library” takes place, as you might suspect, in the library as a famed author comes through for a book reading. With it being filled with predominantly town folk, Julia starts to suspect everyone around her!
With the police busy with other cases, our leading lady, her handsome new sidekick (not the dog) as well as Jake (her always there for her mischief maker labrador) find themselves in the middle of a twisty mystery with a missing manuscript. Can they solve it before anyone else gets hurt?
This is a fun cosy murder mystery, I found it a tad implausible, an easy read! It’s a four out of five on the enJOYment scale.
We received complimentary copies of the book from Bookouture through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in these reviews are completely our own.
From the back cover:
Julia Bird’s picturesque Cotswolds life is everything she’d dreamed of. Until, that is, she discovers a dead body in the library…
Julia Bird had imagined the quiet of rural life would be soothing after years in the city, but she finds she can’t just sit still. Determined to throw herself into village activities, she joins the library just in time to attend a talk by celebrated local author Vincent Andrews.
Charming, devilishly handsome, and talented, Vincent teases the crowd with a reading from his forthcoming novel. Set in a village bearing strange similarities to Berrywick, with characters the audience start to recognise, Vincent hints of dark secrets to be revealed, to gasps of outrage from the room. The meeting ends in uproar, and, just hours later, Vincent’s dead body is discovered behind the bookshelves…
As one of the last people to see him alive, Julia feels morally bound to help the police investigate. With her trusty Labrador, Jake, at her side, she decides to do her own sleuthing and quickly discovers that Vincent’s personal life is messy, his finances are in disarray and his book sales are declining. But most of all, remembering her neighbours’ faces at the book reading, Julia wonders if one of them could have lost the plot enough to kill…
As Julia interrogates the suspects, she walks straight into another scene of murder and mayhem, and realises Vincent’s manuscript is now missing. There’s someone out there who’s deadly serious about keeping their secrets unpublished. Will Julia be able to stop them, before anyone else gets hurt?
Brilliantly twisty, this completely thrilling cozy mystery is perfect for fans of M.C. Beaton, Helena Marchmont and Clare Chase.
