Past Due for Murder
A Blue Ridge Library Mystery
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4.8 • 25 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
After a young woman goes missing during a spring bonfire, library director Amy Webber must wade through the web of lies entangling her small Virginia town
Spring has sprung in quaint Taylorsford, Virginia, and the mayor has revived the town’s long-defunct May Day celebration to boost tourism. As part of the festivities, library director Amy Webber is helping to organize a research project and presentation by a local folklore expert. All seems well at first—but spring takes on a sudden chill when a university student inexplicably vanishes during a bonfire.
The local police cast a wide net to find the missing woman, but in a shocking turn of events, Amy’s swoon-worthy neighbor Richard Muir becomes a person of interest in the case. Not only is Richard the woman’s dance instructor, he also doesn’t have an alibi for the night the student vanished—or at least not one he’ll divulge, even to Amy.
When the missing student is finally discovered lost in the mountains, with no memory of recent events—and a dead body lying nearby—an already disturbing mystery takes on a sinister new hue. Blessed with her innate curiosity and a librarian’s gift for research, Amy may be the only one who can learn the truth.
For fans of Miranda James and Jenn McKinlay, Past Due for Murder is the third conspiratorially delightful third entry in Victoria Gilbert’s critically acclaimed Blue Ridge Library mysteries.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Gilbert's so-so third Blue Ridge Library mystery (after 2018's Shelved Under Murder), the relationship between Amy Webber, the plucky director of the Taylorsford, Va., Library, and her choreographer beau, Richard Muir, heats up. In one amusing scene, Richard's difficult parents meet and size up Amy. Meanwhile, dance student Lacey Jacobs goes missing, and Richard is the last person to see her before her disappearance, thus becoming a person of interest for the police. Amy's ex-boyfriend Charles Bartos, a music professor, is also drawn into the case, as is abrasive folklorist Ramona Raymond. Until a body turns up well into the book, Amy keeps busy researching the disappearance of two women back in 1879 and what might be supernatural doings in the woods. The plot moves slowly, weighed down by backstory. That Amy's romantic triumphs and travails overshadow the crime solving won't bother cozy fans.
