Murder in the Locked Library by Ellery Adams

This fourth book in the cozy mystery series has Jane Steward stressing yet again about dead bodies ruining the reputation of the Storyton Inn when excavators breaking ground for the new spa she hopes to build on the grounds find a skeleton that is clutching a metal box which contains a ruined book.  Also inside are some coins.  The head of the project appears to have picked something up but it was witnessed by Jane's two sons--not exactly reliable witnesses, so Jane doesn't say anything to the Sheriff about it.  The Sherriff calls in a forensic anthropologist to examine the site and especially the bones and she determines that he is British, had rickets and tuberculosis, and was from the 18th century.

Sinclair and Jane examine the book but can't make heads or tales of it. Luckily there's a conference of old book collectors, sellers, book doctors coming to stay at the hotel.  The Robert Harley group is just the one to ask about the book. It contains the Sullivan brothers Arthur and Aaron, Levi Ross, Rosemary, and Bart.  They all look at it and give some clues but no one seems to know what it is, until later when Bart remembers where he has seen it before.   Bart suffers from OCD and has many ticks.  He also suffers from a latex allergy and brings his own gloves with him when he knows he might handle books.

So Bart grabbed a pair of his own gloves to show them the book and explain that it was in fact The Devil's Receipts Book, an old book of which that may be the only copy in existence that contains recipes that are poisonous to eat.  And the book is not ruined, Bart believed, but merely hidden from view and could be revealed with delicate care, making it worth a small fortune.  How many people did he tell this to?

Also, the Sullivan brothers stock has plummeted in the past year and rumors have them looking to merge with Bart's family's company before they lose theirs.  With Bart out of the way would it be easier to convince his board to go through with the merger?  And what about the skeleton?  Does he have a role to play in this drama?  Who killed him and does a modern-day killer want his murder to remain unsolved?

This book ticked me off in one respect and that is when it referred to Indiana Jones and his father as forensic anthropologists.  Indy was an archaeologist and his dad is a professor of medieval history with an emphasis on the Holy Grail.  I really hate it when people get it so obviously wrong.  A good example of a fictional forensic anthropologist is Dr. Temperance Brennan on the TV show Bones or in the books by Kathy Reichs, who is a real-life forensic anthropologist.  I did like the book despite that though it wasn' t her best work.  The suspects were boring and not exciting at all.   I wasn't worried about being killed by them in the least.  But the story of The Devil's book is interesting.  I just wish this had been a more exciting book, though it was really well written.  However, major SPOILER ALERT! she makes the killer someone you least expect at the very end of the book and throws you for a loop and out of that stupor you were in and for that I give it four stars out of five.

Quotes

You also said never fold the corner of a page to mark our place. Civilized people use bookmarks.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 1)

Adventure is not outside man. It is within.

-George Eliot

Jane, my dear. All partners have their secrets.  Earth-shattering or inconsequential as they might be, we all keep things to ourselves.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 14)

Beware of creating fiction, Miss Jane.  We may enjoy reading it, but we’re not writers.  I’m a Fin and you’re a Guardian.  We must work with facts or risk being led astray.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 36)

Another fall, another turned page; there was something of jubilee of that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes and failures and been wiped clean by summer.

-Wallace Stegner

A place is not really a place without a bookstore.

-Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A J Fikery)

You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, “What is your favorite book?”

-Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A J Fikery)

Allow me, Miss Jane.  It’s best to leave the preparation of tea to the British.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 138)

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

-Oscar Wilde

Our hands have met/Our lips have met/Our souls/ Who knows when the wind blows?

-William Morris (“Our Hands Have Met”)

  People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with basic goodness.

-Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)

A strange passion is moving in my head. My head has become a bird which searches in the sky. Every part of me goes in different directions.  Is it really so that the one I love is Everywhere?

-Rumi

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.   

-William Faulkner

One cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin.

=John Rushkin

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