The Stranger in the Library

April 15, 2024
A North Carolina librarian's European honeymoon inspires her to create an exhibit at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library. Crime and chaos follow. In advance of a traveling exhibit of valuable American Impressionist artworks that's coming to the Outer Banks, Lucy McNeil hangs a number of reproductions in the library, adding one original canvas by George O'Callaghan, the less-talented brother of well-known Nags Head painter Robert, whose descendant Louise Jane McKaughnan, Lucy's prickly frenemy, works at the library. The opening party goes well except for a defiant speech by local artist Ivan Novak. Lucy meets Mark Farrago, who organized the traveling exhibition opening the next day, and Louise Jane is attracted to mysterious attendee Tom Reilly. When Lucy gets to work the next morning, she's frankly puzzled to discover that the forgettable O'Callaghan painting is missing--and her detective skills are further tested by the death of Farrago, whose body Lucy and her friends find in a koi pond at the party to celebrate the arrival of the real artwork. Lucy has noticed tension among the people involved in the traveling exhibition, and she thinks there may be quite a few suspects. Her friend Det. Sam Watson has used her unofficial assistance on several previous murders and is not averse to having her help this time. The discovery of the missing canvas at the library with its paper backing cut open leaves everyone wondering what might have been hidden inside. Because Reilly is high on the list of suspects, Louise Jane pushes Lucy to work with her to clear his name, putting them in mortal danger. A neat package of art lore and murder set against the storied background of the Outer Banks.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2024
To provide local programming in support of a major traveling exhibition on American Impressionists opening in nearby Nags Head, Lucy McNeil (last seen in Death Knells and Wedding Bells, 2023) creates an art exhibit and library program for the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The two exhibitions couldn't be more different. While Lucy's library exhibit relies on reproductions, the traveling show contains priceless works, curated by high-powered New York gallery owners. But tying them together is an original seascape by a nineteenth-century Outer Banks painter in the main exhibit and a knock-off painted by his brother--and still owned by his descendants, the family of library staffer Louise Jane--in the library exhibit. At least that's how it is until the knock-off disappears. When Lucy and Louise Jane find the body of one of the New York art specialists in a pool outside the exhibit venue, they and the local police get caught up in the cut-throat world of prestigious art dealerships. Fans of the series will enjoy Lucy's new married state, and it's a treat to see Lucy researching the art, much like Delaney does in Paige Shelton's Scottish Bookshop series.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.