Something Read, Something Dead: A Lighthouse Library Mystery

Gates’s charming fifth Lighthouse Library mystery (after 2018’s The Spook in the Stacks) finds Lucy Richardson of the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library in Nags Head, N.C., and her friends making preparations for the small, simple wedding of Josie O’Malley, owner of Josie’s Cozy Bakery, and her beau, restaurant owner Jake Greenblatt. Then Josie’s overbearing Grandma Gloria and her cousins arrive from New Orleans. The Louisiana Mafia, as Josie calls them, are all set to commandeer the nuptials, making everything bigger, splashier, and more expensive. Tempers flare, feelings are injured, and then, at the bridal shower held in the library, Mirabelle, one of the bridesmaids, is poisoned. Det. Sam Watson gets taken off the case, because he knew practically everyone who attended the shower. He’s replaced by a brash detective from the North Carolina State Police, but that doesn’t stop Sam from wanting his friend Lucy to use her investigative skills in the murder inquiry. Plausible suspects and motives abound. This entry reinforces Gates’s position at the top of the cozy genre. [em]Agent: Kim Lionetti, BookEnds Literary. (Mar.) [/em]