First of a new cosy series by Dorothy St James

This small town mystery centers on the local library being threatened with losing all its books in favour of a digital-only revolution. Our heroine – and the books’/readers’ – is mild-mannered library assistant Trudell. She’s trying to capture a street cat and secretly saving books from the soon-to-be-dumpstered collection when the chief architect of the revolution meets an unscheduled end.

This is a fun-enough book for an idle evening, quite light, and with some physically comic moments. There are several fascinating snippets about book history and construction sprinkled throughout. The main and secondary characters are likeable if a bit flat. The relevant clues seemed to me to jump off the page, but our intrepid heroine did not put one and one together, let alone two and two. The cat was a nice touch, leading to several cute moments and revealing the most humanizing aspect of the returning police detective’s personality.

Although it’s the first in a new series the ongoing character motivations are lacking. There doesn’t seem any compelling reason for readers to root for these characters over any others going forward.

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