Checking Out Crime is the 9th book in the Bookmobile Cat cozy mystery series by Laurie Cass. Released 6th April 2021 from Penguin Random House on their Berkley imprint, it's 352 pages and is available in large print hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This series has been a consistent winner in the librarian-cat-cozy-murder-smalltown-mystery sub-subgenre. The murders are off-scene and mostly bloodless, there's no graphic content, the language is clean, the characters are likeable and mostly intelligent. The narrative arc is well controlled and the plot moves along at a good pace. I never found my interest flagging at any point in the read. There are a number of side-plot and backstory threads which also progress in this book, so readers might want to read some of the earlier books or risk having some plot developments spoiled somewhat. It does work well enough as a standalone that readers won't have any trouble keeping the characters or their interrelationships straight if they read them out of order.
The climax and denouement are well done, but I admittedly found the murder motive pretty thin/unrealistic. That being said, it is a fun cozy and full of the things which we all love about small-town cozies (with cattitude!).
Four stars. Highly recommended to fans of the genre.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
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