Classified as Murder

Classified as Murder by Miranda James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the second book in the Cat in the Stacks mystery series, librarian Charlie Harris lands in the middle of another murder mystery when he discovers James Delacorte dead at his desk in the middle of his locked home library. Mr. Delacorte had hired Charlie to do a complete inventory of his rare book collection because he suspected one of his relatives had been stealing valuable volumes. Chief Deputy Sheriff Kanesha Berry requests that Charlie complete the inventory as quickly as possible, before anything else goes astray...and while he's at it, to please keep his eyes and ears open and report back his observations to her. This puts Charlie, and his son Sean, who's temporarily moved back in with him and is acting as Charlie's assistant, at the center of the deadly family drama.

What a light, fun read! I did actually guess the murderer fairly early on, but I didn't figure out the mystery of the missing books until the end. For a mystery novel, this was much more a character-driven story about a father and son trying to reconnect after an estrangement that began with the loss of a wife/mother. I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.

For readers' advisors: character doorway, with story as secondary. No sex or onscreen violence. Nor any bad language that I can recall, although occasionally it's implied.

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