In Want of a Knife: A Little Library Mystery

The death of 17-year-old Janice Root in an apparent hit-and-run on a road outside Bear Falls, Minn., propels Buzzelli’s unconvincing third Little Library mystery (after 2017’s She Stopped for Death). Janice, who helped her family sell peaches at the family fruit stand, was found wearing an odd, old-fashioned dress. When 16-year-old Camille Otis, another innocent girl, disappears soon afterward, people worry that Cammy, too, may be dead. Local author Zoe Zola, who’s writing a literary study of Jane Austen; Zoe’s neighbors Dora Weston and Dora’s daughter, Jenny Weston; and Jenny’s sometime boyfriend, Tony Ralenti, join forces to follow Cammy’s trail and to learn whether her disappearance and Janice’s death are connected. Meanwhile, a rich man from Chicago offers to give Bear Falls substantial funds to endow anything of their choosing, setting off a frenzy among the town’s residents. Series fans may enjoy the literary allusions, but others will be dismayed that certain characters act in ways that undermine their credibility and that the Jane Austen subplot has no relevance to the main action. (Sept.)