Title: Buried in the Stacks
Author: Allison Brook
Series: A Haunted Library Mystery #3
Boring and stuffed with irrelevant information
I would like to thank Allison Brook, Crooked Lane Books, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
All right, I’ve been working on this book for a few weeks now, and I’ve decided enough’s enough. I managed to read 60% of this boring, meandering story, and I’m calling it quits. I just don’t care—about the mystery, about the characters—and I have a tall stack of other books waiting to be reviewed.
This was my first cozy mystery, I believe—which surprises even myself, given how prevalent the subgenre has become in recent years—they’re freaking everywhere—and I really hope it’s a bad representation of the genre, because it might have ruined me for it.
The narrative was tedious and toneless. Nothing exciting happened, not even Dorothy’s murder, because that was a given. There was no tension. It wasn’t quite monotone, but definitely bland. It had no passion, and any emotion felt…staged, I suppose. It felt rather as if all the characters were bad actors in a play, reciting their lines inorganically.
And there was so much irrelevant chatter. That’s what irritated me the most. We didn’t need to be taken through what Carrie did in her downtime, not when it had nothing to do with the plot. I didn’t care what she had for supper when she got home, what she did on the weekend, how much she missed her boyfriend—she all but waited by the phone every night—or what was going on with her aunt and uncle. I didn’t care who wanted to give presentations at the library, I didn’t care that she wrote the newsletter, I didn’t care that people kept feeding Smokey Joe despite the signs. (Are they allowed to have an animal in a cafe? Isn’t that a violation? *googles* Answer: It’s complicated.) I also don’t know if the kidnapping of Smokey Joe—or the threat of it, anyway—remained a thing. It seemed irrelevant to the portion I read. We also didn’t need any of that ridiculous nonsense about Angela’s wedding; long scenes—maybe even entire chapters—held only talk about a wedding that had nothing to do with the story (at least not up to 60%). All the irrelevant fluff stuffed into the narrative made it harder and harder to take the story seriously.
The narrative also felt antiquated. If not for the technology in use, I would have said this felt like a period piece set back a few decades when there was no texting or emailing and people made a phone call to say—anything. Everything. Back when there were also higher standards of social etiquette, when you called the person who gave you a gift to thank them for it again, even if you already thoroughly thanked them when you received it.
Also lending to the formal vibe was a noticeable lack of slang. The one time I noticed her try to have a character use slang, it was merely a shortening of the word terrific. “I think you’ll look terrif in blue.” I was already annoyed because this was part of one of those irrelevant wedding plan conversations, then I read that quote and sighed in exasperation. I wrote in my notes, “Her one attempt at slang and that’s what she goes with?” I’ve never heard that word shortened. Or if I have, not at all often. Maybe it was a typo? That would be hilarious.
Oh, another thing that made it feel out-of-date—or maybe just out of touch. When Fred and Carrie were discussing his alibi for the night Dorothy fell, he claimed there was no way to prove he’d gone back into the store to buy the butter they’d initially forgotten. That’s a huge load of crap. In addition to the store’s security cameras being very conveniently off that night, Fred had paid cash and thrown away the receipt, so there was no paper trail—but I’m 99.9% certain there would have been an electronic sales record in the store’s POS—point of sale—system. The only way there wouldn’t have been is if the system only saved the records for a short period of time, though I think those records are retained like any other paperwork—for as long as the IRS could audit them. For that matter, some stores even keep their own hardcopies of every transaction. I can’t remember how long records remained available when I worked at a convenience store, but I remember being able to search for a specific transaction in the past—usually by date and narrowed by time—and reprint the receipt. It should have been simple enough to find a purchase of only butter in a cash transaction at a specific time on a specific day. It wouldn’t list his name or personal information, but it would go a long way in corroborating his story. And what about the first purchase, when they bought everything but butter? Did Fred keep that receipt? Can it be matched on the store’s POS system and prove that it took place only a couple minutes before the butter purchase? Aside from all that, I think there’s a good chance the cashier would remember him returning to buy butter. I’m sure he and the cashier would have joked about it. There’s so much more to consider than whether or not he possessed that one receipt.
As for the protag—I didn’t like Carrie. I completely understood how Lt. Mathers got annoyed with Carrie’s interference in the investigation, and I was kind of disappointed that he didn’t shut her down. She had no qualifications beyond an inquisitive mind, she didn’t even like the victim, yet she thought it was her responsibility to solve the crime. Because reasons. Because mystery book, I guess. She wanted to solve it because she arrogantly thought she could—should. Her involvement wasn’t sanctioned; it wasn’t a matter of working with the police, helping them, like as a consultant—which she didn’t have the qualifications to be. She was told to leave it alone—which she ignored without qualm. She even internally debated whether or not she should share the information she uncovered with the police. At one point she thought, “Hmm. John had told me to stay out of the investigation. Was it my obligation to tell him what I knew?” At which point I gave up trying to like her. In my mind, I responded, “I’m pretty sure it’s a crime if you don’t share pertinent information with the police, sweetheart. I believe that falls under obstruction of justice and/or withholding evidence in an investigation by law enforcement. If things really got fucked up because you kept secrets, you’d be facing charges. The fact that you don’t know that, hon, is exactly why you should leave it alone.”
Moving on—I’m not sure what the point of Dylan was. I’ll grant that he seemed important to some aspect of Carrie’s character—maybe?—but his significance to the plot was lost on me. As far as I can tell, having only read 60% before skipping to the end to skim the conclusion, the only way he contributed was showing up like a deus ex machina white knight to save Carrie. Other than that, he was…there. And not even actually there; for half the book he was on the other end of a phone call.
Maybe I would have cared about the characters more if I’d read the first two books. But I doubt it.
All that remains of my notes are some random comments.
The word “avocado” was used seven times in the book, always in relation to Carrie’s irrelevant meal choices. Lots of salads and turkey sandwiches featuring avocado. I would exempt the cheeseburger, if she hadn’t put avocado on it. A bland, pretentious, goody-two-shoes palette suits her character, though. But yeah, by chapter eight and the fourth mention of avocado, I made the note: “If I read the word ‘avocado’ one more time…”
At one point early on the timing got confused—Carrie said Dylan would come home on Friday, when really it was the following Friday. Hopefully they corrected that in the final. Not critically important, but it threw me off enough that I had to take time to investigate the mistake—I reread several pages to make sure I hadn’t missed something—and reorient my mind to the narrative’s timeline.
There was the moment when Carrie asked Evelyn, “Did you ever have a serious argument with Sally?” This was after Carrie and Evelyn had been looking into Dorothy’s—and consequently Evelyn’s—death for some time. Carrie had already implored Evelyn to tell her anything that seemed even remotely relevant to the matter—several times, I think. Evelyn responded, “A few times. The worst was the day I…became deceased.” Carrie said, “You never said.” And Evelyn told her, “You never asked.” And I thought—Are you fucking serious right now? You did not just use the laziest excuse in history to withhold information until you wanted to reveal it.
Lastly, this plan: Carrie to Gillian: “I’ll call you Saturday when I’m leaving for the country club. This way we’ll arrive close to the same time.” Gillian to Carrie: “Good idea. I’d feel like an idiot, standing around with no one to talk to.” Why didn’t they just ride together? I mean, wouldn’t that be easier? There was no reason not to, as far as I could tell. That’s also an example where texting would have been sufficient for Carrie to let Gillian know she was leaving.
Oh, I suppose I should comment on the actual mystery, since that was kind of the point. (Or was it? Hard to tell at times.) Honestly, if Carrie had been likable and all the fat was trimmed off—Ugh! The wedding talk! If I had a print copy I’d take a red crayon and scribble all over those pages right now—it probably would have been a great book. Brook did a good job presenting several suspects and giving them plausible motivation for murder. I didn’t figure out whodunit, which is why I had to skim the end. All that irrelevant crap also diluted the tension by distracting from the sense of danger and threat of harm to the characters we’re suppose to care about. It’s hard to be worried about murder when you’re having fun dress shopping and discussing color schemes. The homeless plot had potential, too. (I assume it tied into the murder mystery via money scheme, otherwise it was also irrelevant). If I cared about anyone, it was the Marises.
Overall, the plot had potential but the execution was shoddy.
