Death of an Avid Reader

July 25, 2016
In Brody’s charming sixth mystery set in 1920s England (after Murder on a Summer’s Day), private detective Kate Shackleton agrees to help Lady Coulton locate the daughter she gave up soon after birth while her husband—who’s not the child’s father—was serving in South Africa during the Boer War. Lord Coulton, who’s on his deathbed, would have divorced her at the time had he known of her indiscretion. Kate’s search for the now-grown daughter takes her to Yorkshire, where she ends up participating in a ceremony to expel alleged ghosts from an old library in Leeds. In the library’s dark cellar she happens on the strangled body of a well-known mathematician, as well as an organ grinder who’s barely alive. Former policeman Jim Sykes ably assists Kate in the ensuing investigation. Kate and Jim are sharply rendered, quirky and intelligent with complementary skills. Readers will enjoy watching them at work. Agent: Judith Murdoch, Judith Murdoch Literary (U.K.).

July 1, 2016
A socially superior private detective seeks a child long ago given up for adoption.Kate Shackleton travels from Leeds to London at the request of Lady Coulton, who's asked her to find Sophia, the baby she gave away to her nanny's sister in 1901, after she had an affair while her husband was off in South Africa. Even today, Lady Coulton can't acknowledge Sophia's existence, but ever since the nanny died, she's been anxious about how her daughter is faring. Back home in Leeds, there are problems at the reputedly haunted library in which Kate has an interest. A battle is raging to determine whether the library will stay or move to new premises. When Kate discovers a monkey hiding in her car, she realizes it must belong to the local organ grinder, who's soon found deathly ill in the library basement along with a valuable book and the body of Dr. Potter, a mathematician also connected to the library. Inspector Wallis seems sure the organ grinder is guilty, but Kate, who has little faith in his skills, adds the murder to the case she already has in hand. As it turns out, the two may well be connected. Kate's inquiries reveal that Sophia may be working in a library; indeed, she may be the assistant recently sacked from the Leeds Library after being accused of theft. Kate, who was herself adopted into the well-to-do family of a chief constable, is determined to track down Sophia but must investigate past scandals and present-day love triangles before she can determine who is the real Sophia. Brody (Murder on a Summer's Day, 2016, etc.) has the style of the classic British cozy down pat. Plenty of distinctive characters, charming animals, and twists and turns add up to a delightful, though not particularly taxing, mystery.

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August 1, 2016
Kate Shackleton, a WWI widow from Leeds, England, who has reinvented herself as a private detective, has been engaged by a London noblewoman to find her illegitimate daughter, thought to have been adopted by a family near Leeds. She starts her investigations at the library, stopping to chat with Dr. Potter, a mathematician who also serves with Kate on the library committee. Then matters turn a little weird. First, there's the capuchin monkey Kate finds stowed away in her car. Then there's the exorcism she agrees to attend at the library, and finally, there's the crumpled body of Dr. Potter, which Kate finds in the library basement. The police immediately accuse a shivering, barely alive organ grinder (remember the monkey?). As Kate, a former nurse, nurses the accused, she concludes that he cannot have bashed Dr. Potter and determines to prove his innocence, though the murder investigation impedes her real case. These various, unlikely threads do come together eventually, and, in the process, Brody draws the reader into the wacky doings in Leeds.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)