Are you a New Yorker? Are you a librarian? Perhaps someone you know is both a New Yorker and/or a librarian? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then Murder off the Page is for you. Or if you are New York-adjacent or librarian-adjacent (I am both) it’s still for you.

You don’t, of course, have to be a New Yorker or a librarian, adjacent or not. You don’t even have to know who Patience and Fortitude are, even though a portion of this mystery does take place in the 42nd Street library. Basically this is a traditional whodunit with a New York Public Library context. As soon as I started reading it, I recalled that some time ago I had read another book by Con Lehane (definitely not to be confused with Dennis Lehane, presumably no relation but what do I know?); that other book was Murder at the 42nd Street Library. I couldn’t have known it at the time, but that one was the first in a now-six-book series, of which Murder off the Page is the third.

Why, you ask, did I skip the second? No particular reason — just that I didn’t know about the series. So now (horrors, I am out of order!) that I finished book #3 I have begun to read book #2. After I finish I will let you know whether the misordering makes any difference; at that point I’ll also give you a full review of both volumes. For now let me just say that Murder off the Page is low-key (fittingly so for a librarian protagonist), more cerebral than exciting despite the blurb that claims “shocking revelations.” I was definitely not shocked, although the story did hold my attention throughout and the characters all felt real. Stay tuned…

Categories: Books