Murder by the Bookend

June 15, 2021
A North Carolina bookshop becomes a magnet for murder. Having cleared her name in the killing of her uncle, Paul Baxter, in For Whom the Book Tolls (2020), Jenna Quinn turns her attention to his shop, which she of course has inherited. First the name. To her ear, "Baxter's Book Emporium" lacks pizzazz. So she rechristens Hokes Folly's premier source of antique books "Twice Upon a Time." Then the clientele. She invites the cream of local society to her grand reopening party, hoping to entice them with her rare and well-preserved wares. Of course many of Hokes Folly's glitterati turn out to be pains in the parchment. Snooty Selina March makes snide comments about the food and tosses the fragile merchandise on the floor. Linus Talbot insists that the invitation's plus-one entitles him to bring his dog, Eddy, decked out in a bow tie that matches his own. Thank goodness the crowd includes handsome Detective Keith Logan. Not only does Jenna take his presence as a sign that their budding romance is going well, but she's able to call on his professional skills when Talbot turns up dead in the parking lot. Still, much as she'd like to sit back and wait for the police to solve the crime, Jenna can't--not after a local reporter runs a story pointing out that this is now the third death tied to her shop. So along with her store manager, Mason Craig, and her best friend, Rita Wallace, she does what any small-town shopkeeper would do: hunts down the killer on her own. A plot as well-thumbed as the heroine's volumes and as likely to bring joy to true fans.

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October 1, 2021
Hoping to make a success of the used and antiquarian bookshop she inherited from her uncle, Jenna Quinn does not need another murder anywhere near Twice upon a Time, her shop in Hokes Folly, North Carolina. Unfortunately, the local library's Director of Antique Books, Linus Talbot, is murdered by the very book ends he wins as a door prize at the shop's grand reopening party. The party had been going well until Talbot showed up with his dog, Eddy, as his "+1." He then had less-than-friendly conversations with several of the other guests, including a glad-handing politician, a suspicious spinster, and a grating social climber. The sour-tempered detective on the case suspects Jenna, not believing her theory that unusual activities in the antiquarian book world may be behind the murder. The characters, especially the suspects, are memorable for their flamboyance, and the subplots that thread throughout provide appropriately shifting motives. The second in the series, this will appeal to fans of cozies set in bookstores and libraries, such as those by Dorothy St. James and Eva Gates.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.