Shadow in the Glass is the second book of a new cozy series featuring a librarian by M.E. Hilliard. Released 5th April 2022 by Crooked Lane, it's 336 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback out in 1st quarter 2023. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is a promising second book from a new author who has worked as a librarian and seems to have a similar background in high-end retail fashion as protagonist Greer. The librarian-dog-cozy-murder-smalltown-mystery sub-subgenre is always fun and this is a nice addition to the promising start in book 1. The murders are off-scene and mostly bloodless, there's no graphic content, the language is fairly clean, the characters are (mostly) likeable and intelligent and there are a plethora of suspects and lots of red herrings. I got a slight Agatha Raisin vibe. She's smart and fashion conscious and sophisticated as well as vulnerable and not so perfect that she becomes insufferable.
Since
it's a librarian cozy, there are of course book tie-ins and title
name-dropping. One of my favorite features of librarian cozies is the
suggestions for titles, series, and authors with which I was previously
unfamiliar. I found a couple of good ones in this book to follow up on as a nice
bonus. I suspect most of the titles and series mentioned will be
familiar to most readers. The Mary Roberts Rinehart mention was especially nice, and I've been revisiting her oeuvre because of the mention, especially since she was a local author for me, albeit departed before my time.
The
climax and denouement are well done. It's a fun, slightly melancholy cozy and
full of the things which we all love about small-town cozies. Sadly in this installment landlord Henri barely gets a look-in, and Pierre, the adorable French bulldog is entirely absent. I hope they figure more prominently in the next book.
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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