Fun little cozy bibliomystery I listened to via NetGalley.

Engaging characters with some odd callouts to other mystery series and writers. Few true surprises but an entertaining read with enough to amuse and attract book lovers and librarians and mystery fans too
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Briar Creek Library director Lindsey Norris and her husband, Sully, are at a popular library conference in Chicago to hear book restoration specialist Brooklyn Wainwright give a keynote address. After the lecture, Lindsey looks under her seat and finds a tote bag containing a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, inscribed to Alfred Hitchcock. Brooklyn determines the novel is one of a kind and quite valuable, so Lindsey and Sully return the book to the conference director, not wanting to stir up any trouble.

But just hours after the pair boards the train back to Connecticut, rumors that the Highsmith novel has gone missing buzz amongst the passengers, and they soon find the conference director murdered in his private compartment. And worse—the murderer planted the book in Lindsey and Sully’s room next door, making them prime suspects. Now, they must uncover the murderer and bring them to the end of their line, before they find themselves booked for a crime they didn’t commit.

Featuring a cameo by a beloved character from the New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle's Bibliophile series! ( )

The audiobook narrator was overly dramatic (even the chapter numbers are read with emotion!) but the material she's working with is also at fault. I confess I am not a fan of cozy mysteries and, while the plot in this one is compelling enough, the characters and their actions never feel real. I suppose that's the escapist appeal of cozies. McKinlay's novels are probably on par with the more skillfully written cozies and I might have liked this better in print than on audio. ( )

I liked this up to the final ten pages when the mystery is explained. It was contradictory at points, didn't make a whole lot of sense, was full of holes and very jumbled. I read these not for the mystery but for the characters and the over all warmth and coziness the author elicits.

But, if you're looking for a complex mystery that makes sense, there are other cozies out there that do a much better job. ( )

Lindsey and Sully are in Chicago for an archivist convention when Lindsey finds a tote bag with a very rare book in it under her conference seat. They turn it in to the convention coordinator – a former professional collector of such finds – then start making their way home to Briar Creek on an overnight train. Straight out of Christie’s playbook, they wake the next morning to find that the coordinator, who was also homeward bound on the same train, has been murdered, and somehow that rare book has made its way back into Lindsey’s possession. But that’s just the beginning of their troubles when the murder train stops in Briar Creek and the suspects are all bunking in the local inn during a major snowstorm.

There’s a lot going on in this entry in the series, and it’s all a bit jumbled, to be honest. It seems that all cozy mystery series start to fray around the edges at some point, and I’m afraid this one is starting to show signs of unraveldom. I’ll stick with it for now because I like the characters, but if the writing gets much worse I’ll likely jump ship soon. ( )