This is an appealing and well written cozy mystery (and series). For some reason, my reading list has been too heavily slanted toward very serious 'deep' and angry books lately. This was the perfect antidote to too much current events, philosophy, and politics.
The story finds Sabrina and Hitchcock again involved in some amateur sleuthing, this time concerning the demise of the difficult new librarian who disappears the day she meets Sabrina.
There was a lot to like here. The book is well written technically, the plotting and characterizations are fine and the dialogue is well done and not clunky or awkward. The story arc moves along at a good clip and the clues follow all the rules of engagement. Like many other 'cozy mysteries with food and cats (and sometimes libraries), this one does actually include some recipes at the end of the book. I cannot vouch for any of the recipes, but they look good, and I actually intend to try the peanut butter crunch cake, which uses a cake mix as its base and seems manageable. I also really like that the author included a mention of library therapy animals for reading practice for patrons who are struggling with literacy. The animals provide a non-judgemental listening ear and the reader gets practice and literacy confidence building! Well done!!
The language is clean (a couple of 'damn's, nothing worse) and there's no racy content, nothing to make anyone blush. This was my daily bus commute read and it was a good one.
Four stars. I'll be sticking with Hitchcock and Sabrina for the next books in the series.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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