The Bodie Island Lighthouse Library is a favorite place to visit in the pages of each new adventure with librarian Lucy McNeil. This time the library is hosting a book festival featuring several local authors and big name headliner Todd Harrison. When that headliner winds up mysteriously dead, Lucy is caught up once again in looking for the truth of what happened. There are plenty of suspects - the other authors who wanted to be the main speaker at the event, the one who accused him of stealing her story idea and profiting from it, disappointed fans who heard he was ending his popular series and starting something completely different... It seems too many people had motives to make solving the case easy. When Harrison's widow begins pressuring local police and using her bereavement as a means to further her own political ambitions, things really get out of hand.
This series has plenty of mystery elements - a cast of local characters with their assorted quirks and foibles, multiple motives to sort through, a protagonist who knows the majority of the suspects (or can find ways to question them), and enough suspects working at cross purposes to keep things unclear for the police. Lucy is an amateur sleuth, however unwilling, who uses her local knowledge and her resources to try and put things right. The fact that the death occurs on her own porch this time gives her some extra motivation to close the case. The setting with the library at its center and the way each story is somehow tied to books (authors, festivals, displays, etc.) make this series a cozy home away from home for bibliophiles and mystery lovers alike. Whether readers are returning for another visit to Bodie Island or just encountering Lucy and the library for the first time, it will be a pleasurable experience.
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