solving murders with a hitch
When librarian Lindsey Norris and her husband, Sully, go to a library conference in Chicago, Lindsey is excited to spend some time learning more about book restoration. Her home library in Briar Creek, Connecticut, has just acquired a collection that will need extra time and attention. But as the talk with restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright comes to a close, Lindsey reaches under her chair for her bag and finds another bookbag. She looks around to see if it belongs to someone else, but there is no one nearby, and no one in the room seems to be looking for a missing bag.
Inside the bag, Lindsey finds a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. And on the title page is an autograph from the author, signed to director Alfred Hitchcock, who directed the film based on the book. Lindsey knows that not only is that book incredibly rare, it’s worth a lot of money. She hands it over to the man running the conference for safekeeping, until the owner surfaces.
After the conference, Lindsey and Sully go back to Connecticut by train, along with a lot of the other conference attendees who live on the East Coast. But when the conference director is murdered on the train, Lindsey can’t help but wonder if the Highsmith book had anything to do with his murder. \
The train stops at the next station so that the authorities can investigate. The stop happens to be Lindsey and Sully’s, so they get to go home. But all the other conference attendees that were on the train also have to get off. The police put them up at the local inn, especially since there is a snowstorm coming that will make any more travel unsafe.
As Police Chief Emma is starting her investigation, questioning everyone who was at the conference and on the train, Sully goes to ferry supplies to the small island where his parents live before the storm gets too bad. But as the hours go by and Lindsey hasn’t heard from Sully, she knows that something is terribly wrong.
As Lindsey tries to figure out where Sully is, she realizes that there is most likely a killer stuck in town. So she has to fight the weather to try to find who the killer is, so she can make sure to get Sully back in time. But it’s going to take the help of her library crafters and best friends to come up with coup de grace that will bring the killer to light.
Fatal First Edition is Jenn McKinlay’s fourteenth book in her popular Library Lover’s Mystery series. The story of the library conference, the rare Patricia Highsmith first edition, and the murder on the train take this cozy mystery to a fun and interesting level. But it’s the addition of the massive snowstorm that really adds the danger, raising the stakes so high for Lindsey and her friends. And longtime cozy fans may recognize the special guest in this novel, book restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright (and her husband) from Kate Carlisle’s popular Bibliophile Mystery series.
I listened to the audio book of Fatal Frist Edition, narrated beautifully by Allyson Ryan. Listening to the first part of the book, the conference and the train ride, was a lovely treat. Once they got to Connecticut and there was a snowstorm in addition to a murderer, I could really feel the tension. I thought it felt pretty intense for a few chapters, more intense than I usually feel during a cozy mystery. But as always, it was beautifully written with strong characters. I loved the focus on Patricia Highsmith, and while the villain was not a big surprise, I was happy to see how everything came together in the end.
A copy of the audio book for Fatal First edition was provided by Dreamscape Media through NetGalley, with many thanks.
