annieb123's Review of The Broken Spine (A Beloved Bookroom Mystery, #1)

by Dorothy St. James

When small-town assistant librarian Tru Beckett sets up a secret book room in her newly modernized library, she discovers that protecting the printed word is harder than she’d ever imagined. In fact, it’s murder.

Trudell Becket, known to her friends as Tru, finds herself in a bind when her library in lovely Cypress, South Carolina, is turned into a state-of-the-art bookless “technological center.” A library with no books breaks Tru’s book-loving heart so she decides to rescue hundreds of beloved tomes slated for the town dump. Under the cover of darkness, Tru, along with her best friends—coffee shop owner Tori Green and mysterious bestselling author Flossie Finnegan-Baker—set up a secret bookroom in the library’s basement and prepare to open it to their most loyal, trustworthy patrons.

But as Tru and her crew are putting the finishing touches on their new book room, the town manager, who was behind the big push for the library’s transformation, is crushed by an overturned shelf of DVDs. Tru becomes the prime suspect as she hadn’t hid the fact that she hated having all of those wonderful books replaced by tablets and computers. But if she gives the police her alibi, she’ll have to explain about the secret book room and risk losing the books.

Tru knows she’s in a heap of trouble, and it doesn’t help that the officer in charge of the case is her old crush from high school, who broke her teenaged heart. To keep herself out of jail and her beloved bookroom up and running, Tru—with the help of Tori, Flossie, and a brown tabby stray cat named Dewey Decimal—decides to investigate. And faster than you can say “Shhhh!” Tru quickly finds herself on the same page with a killer who would love to write her final chapter. . . .

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Broken Spine is the first book in a new library cozy series by Dorothy St. James. Due out 19th Jan 2021 from Penguin Random House on their Berkley imprint, it's 320 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a small-town library murder mystery cozy complete with cat. I found the characters formulaic and "trope-y" and the plotting predictable (down to the does-he-doesn't-he handsome detective slow-burn love interest and over the top denouement). It was, however, an engaging pleasant read and honestly there are reasons why cozy readers like me love their cat-library-cozies. There were some problematic plot issues (like the town-wide conspiracy to stay silent about the library-in-exile which is in the SAME PHYSICAL BUILDING as the new "improved" electronic library and media center upstairs). There was altogether too much pearl clutching school-marm-ish shushing and Victorian rigidity in the characterizations of the librarians and quite a lot of unnecessary antagonism between the "we hate books" library of the future and the "we hate electronics" library of the past. I'm all for the "can't we all get along" majority in the middle and I have yet to see even the most fervent lover of e-readers who thinks paper books are a thing of the past. Furthermore I've yet to see even the most hidebound bibliophile react with hatred to e-music, film, and media collections. The characterizations were predictable and two dimensional (down to the brightly dyed purple stripe in the young female tech-guru's hair).

One of the major (really *the* major) plot device(s) is so beyond the bounds of possibility that it just never really achieved liftoff for me. No spoilers, but it's the main impetus for the first murder and all subsequent plot action.

I do recommend the book to readers who are especially fond of small-town librarian cat cozies, but understand that there are some major issues going in and bring a hefty suspension of disbelief to the party.

Three and a half stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

The Broken Spine (A Beloved Bookroom Mystery, #1)

by Dorothy St. James

Reviewed by annieb123 on Jan 16, 2021

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