Before we can go forth with our new theme of Triple Play, last year’s Sisterhood of Sleuthing must be completed with a look at Kate Carlisle’s If Books Could Kill , the second volume of her Bibliophile Mystery series.
Our leading lady Brooklyn Wainwright is pleased to be getting back to her work as a bookbinder by attending the annual Edinburgh Book Festival both as a speaker and participant in a restoration workshop.
She runs into plenty of old friends such as Helen, who is on the verge of divorce from her dreadful husband Martin, and a very special former friend, Kyle McVee.
Kyle was Brooklyn’s boyfriend at one time but his roving eye ended that romance for good. Nonetheless, they remained bookish pals and their reunion at this event gives him the chance to ask her for help in authenticating a rather unique book of poems.
The tome in question is a rare edition of Robbie Burns poems that tell a tale of forbidden romance between himself and an English princess. While Brooklyn isn’t a historian, she’s willing to assist Kyle but little does she know what a world of trouble that she’s stepping into:
Not longer after Brooklyn takes the book into her keeping , Kyle is found dead at a tourist attraction and the murder weapon is one of her own bookbinding tools.
Fortunately for Brooklyn, former MI-6 agent Derek Stone who helped to clear her name before from a murder charge is on hand here to lend a hand. It’s a good thing that he and the lead detective Angus MacLeod are both colleagues in crime solving and willing to look at other suspects.
Plenty of those abound, such as a persnickety bookseller offended by the very idea of an illicit royal love affair, a woman claiming to be Kyle’s wife and a band of men who profess to be members of The Robert Burns Society determined to protect their countryman’s name.
Brooklyn also becomes the target of several attacks, including a raid of her hotel room (awakening her in the middle of the night!) and a library incident that rivals a certain scene from 1999’s The Mummy, which is quite the close call indeed:
When another body turns up, the list of suspects grows shorter yet the threat level for Brooklyn keeps going up higher. Can she find the killer and keep the book safe from those on either side who want it to vanish from public sight?
Having read later books in this series, it’s fun to catch up with Brooklyn’s past adventures and see how her relationship with Derek develops, not to mention appearances by the mysterious Gabriel(a rogue book buyer) and even the arrival of Brooklyn’s offbeat parents, especially her flighty but feisty mom who is eager to recommend all sorts of herbal cleansing to cure what ails you!
The book lore is charmingly entertaining as well as educational (the Robbie Burns secret romance being truly a work of fiction there). All in all, a true delight with an additional mystery that gave a James Bond flair to the proceedings rather well:
Now for our 2023 theme known as Triple Play, where I cover three books in a row from the same series and author.
We begin with Ellery Adams’s Book Retreat Mysteries, the first book being Murder in the Mystery Suite.
Widowed mother Jane Steward runs Storyton Hall, a resort dedicated to the love of books , and to that end she plans a Murder Mystery week long event to drum up some much needed new business.
All goes well until one of the guests winds up as an actual corpse and it’s up to Jane to solve this all too real mystery before the final page is turned for a fatal finale. So far, it’s a welcome romp into a reader’s wonderland with touches of warmhearted humor and heart that I look forward to more and more:
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