I finished this back in June, so some details are fuzzy.

Lucy previously worked at the Harvard Library and is now a new librarian at Bodie Island's public library, which is housed inside a lighthouse. There are a few folks who aren't thrilled that she got the job, but for the most part Lucy loves her new position. She's particularly excited about the Jane Austen first editions the library currently has on loan. That excitement turns to dismay and horror as one of the first editions goes missing and the chairman of the library board is found murdered.

I tend to be drawn to book and library-themed cozy mysteries, so I snatched this one up when I spotted it in a used bookstore. Unfortunately, it turned out to be terrible.

The author's bio doesn't mention any sort of library background, although she thanks a librarian in her acknowledgements, so I assume she spoke to that person as part of her research. Either her research wasn't very thorough or she didn't ask the right questions, because this book was filled with mistakes and difficult-to-believe details.

Cozy mystery authors seem to be fond of 30-year-old librarians who somehow already have 10 years of librarian experience under their belts. Library experience would be believable, but becoming a librarian by age 20 would really be pushing it, particularly a librarian at the Harvard Library. You need a bachelor's degree first (approximately 4 years), and then a Master's in Library Science (or Library and Information Science, depending on the school), which can take 1-2 years depending on what sort of course load you can handle. Lucy would have had to graduate early in both high school and college early in order to be a librarian by age 20.

But what really bothered me was the author's glaring lack of knowledge about library security. On page 129, there was this discussion between one of the library's employees and a police officer:

"'I don't suppose y'all have security on the door?'

'I do some crowd control,' Charlene said.

'Stopping little old ladies from stepping on each other's sensible shoes. I meant like a bar-code detector. Alarm. Things like that.'

'This is a library. Not a jewelry store. And we're in the Bodie Island Lighthouse, not the Bronx. No, we do not have alarms.'"

There's so much wrong with this passage that it's hard to know where to start. Yes, there are lots of small libraries out there that don't have much in the way of security - but those libraries would never be loaned a collection of Jane Austen first editions for a temporary display. And libraries that don't have any sort of security systems in place likely don't have them because they can't afford them, not because they think they don't need them - all libraries, even ones in small towns, are better off with some sort of security system in place (alarms, security gates, panic buttons, etc.), for the safety of their users and staff as well as to reduce the likelihood of theft. Charlene saying that this was "the Bodie Island Lighthouse, not the Bronx" struck me as both naive and potentially racist. Also, library security gates are not called bar-code detectors - I'll forgive that one because it was the police officer character who said it.

If I remember right, the above passage occurred after the first book went missing. That left five books and a notebook that could still be stolen. In addition to keeping the books locked up and only removing them when a staff member could be on hand to make sure it stayed safe, I'd have bought a webcam or two off Amazon and set them up. Instead, library staff felt that keeping the books locked up as much as possible (with the key easily accessible in the head librarian's unlocked office) was good enough. Considering how the story progressed (more thefts!), the continued library security issues were maddening.

Although I was able to figure out the murderer's identity a little early, I did think the murder mystery aspect was decent. It's too bad that everything was overshadowed by the glaringly awful library security details. No one in their right mind would lend a library like this anything even remotely rare and valuable. I very much agreed with the cop who said this: "I wouldn't want y'all guarding my doghouse." (226)

Sometimes terrible cozy mysteries can be at least somewhat saved by their characters. That wasn't the case here. Lucy annoyed me. Her views on books and library struck me as being old-fashioned, and she seemed to be very judgmental of everything from other people's tastes in recreational reading to the kind of music they listened to. Her two potential love interests (yes, there's already a love triangle in the works) were both bland and uninteresting. I'm assuming Connor (the guy Lucy had a crush on as a teen, and who is now the mayor) is being set up as the guy who appears to have the best chance with Lucy, while Butch (a local cop) is the guy Lucy's actually going to end up with. If she ever ends up with anyone.

I don't plan on reading more of this series.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

My current internet speed is giving me flashbacks to the days of dial-up and won't be fixed until Thursday at the earliest, so I doubt I'll be posting much between now and then. (Edit: And several hours later, my internet speed is fine. Ugh. I'm still going to have a repair person look at it, because it's been going down once every day or two in addition to the periodic slowness.)

I finally finished my first Booklikesopoly read, for Square 11. At 325 pages, this gets me $3, for a total of $23. I don't get to roll yet, because multiple rolls mean that I still have another square in play, Square 27. I plan to read Emma Newman's Planetfall for that one, although I might not update my Currently Reading list until Monday, when I'll have access to Internet that isn't slow enough to make a cup of coffee while I'm waiting for the full page to load.

If you've read my updates for By Book or By Crook, my feelings about it are probably pretty plain. If you haven't, I'll spell it out: I hated it. The characters' stupidity when it came to library security was mind-boggling, especially considering that the entire story was centered around the library's temporary collection of Jane Austen first editions. Although I figured out who the murderer was before their identity was revealed, I do think the mystery was mostly decent. Too bad it was overshadowed by the security issues.

I wasn't a fan of the heroine, and the ongoing joke about Charlene's "terrible" taste in music (rap) irked me. The love triangle didn't bother me as much as it could have...primarily because neither of the guys really interested me. I'm assuming Connor (the guy Lucy had a crush on as a teen, and who is now the mayor) is being set up as the guy who appears to have the best chance with Lucy, while Butch (a local cop) is the guy Lucy's actually going to end up with, assuming she ever ends up with anyone.

Another Jane Austen first edition has gone missing, and the library still hasn't installed so much as a single security camera. "But we locked the cabinet! There's only one key! It was in Bertie's office (which isn't kept locked)." So. Frustrating.

From a librarian perspective, this is the worst of the three library-related cozy mystery series I've tried in the past year. The author's bio doesn't mention library work, so I'm curious about the research she did prior to writing this.

Lucy's views on books and libraries feel a bit old school considering her age. Also, it just occurred to me that her career timeline doesn't really work. She's 30 (confirmed on page 58) and got her library science degree 10 years ago. It generally takes 1 to 2 years to get your degree (a friend of mine who managed it in 1.5 burned out, so 1 is really pushing it), and you need to have a bachelor's first. The only way the numbers would even vaguely work out is if she graduated early for everything.

The bit I'm at right now is discussing library security:

"'I don't suppose y'all have security on the door?'

 

'I do some crowd control,' Charlene said.'

 

'Stopping little old ladies from stepping on each other's sensible shoes. I meant like a bar-code detector. Alarm. Things like that.'

 

'This is a library. Not a jewelry store. And we're in the Bodie Island Lighthouse, not the Bronx. No, we do not have alarms.'"

Urban libraries are not the only libraries with security systems. Lots of libraries, even very small ones, have some combination of security cameras, alarmed doors, panic buttons, and security gates (which are not barcode detectors, but I'll let that pass since the person who said it was a cop and not a librarian). It doesn't matter if the items the library generally houses aren't valuable - stolen books are a drain on resources, even if all the library does is mark them missing without bothering to replace them (the search process takes staff time, and this library has a staff of maybe four or five people). There's also the issue of staff and patron safety.

My own library has never temporarily hosted any rare materials, but I would have thought some sort of explanation of how the library planned on keeping the items safe would be part of that.

I didn't actually read much yesterday. I'm going to try to make up for that today.

There seems to be a continuity error here. Lucy has decided that it's okay to eat a couple gooey tarts at the buffet table, which she had previously been avoiding. Way back on page 7, though, she'd said that all the walking up and down the steps of the lighthouse (where the library is located and where she also lives) meant that she'd surely lost enough weight to be able to have one of the gooey pecan tarts. I thought that meant she'd already been having some of the tarts.