Status
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Description
Fiction. Literature. Mystery. Charlie Harris is stressed out. The Southern Academic Libraries Association is holding this year's annual meeting at Athena College. Since Charlie is the interim library director, he must deliver the welcome speech to all the visiting librarians. And as if that weren't bad enough, the keynote address will be delivered by Charlie's old nemesis from library school. It's been thirty years since Charlie has seen Gavin Fong, and he's still an insufferable know-it-all capable of getting under everyone's skin. In his keynote, Gavin puts forth a most unpopular opinion: that degreed librarians will be obsolete in the academic libraries of the future. So when Gavin drops dead, no one seems too upset . . . But Charlie, who was seen having a heated argument with Gavin the day before, has jumped to the top of the suspect list. Now Charlie and Diesel must check out every clue to refine their search for the real killer among them before the next book Charlie reads comes from a prison library . . .… (more)
User reviews
I found Twelve Angry Librarians to be my favorite book in A Cat in the Stacks Mystery series. It is well-written and pleasurable to read. I also found it to have a good pace which makes it easy to read. Twelve Angry Librarians may be the eighth book in the series, but a reader can enjoy it as a stand-alone. Miranda James provides all the information a reader needs. Twelve Angry Librarians contains relatable characters that readers will love. Diesel, the Maine Coon Cat, is especially enjoyable (with his little chirps and trills). I give Twelve Angry Librarians 5 out of 5 stars. I especially appreciated the well-crafted mystery in Twelve Angry Librarians. It was puzzling (in a wonderful way). I do not believe that many people will be able to figure out the whole solution. I wish more authors would create out-of-box murder mysteries that are complex and difficult for the reader to crack. Twelve Angry Librarians has good characters, a little romance, family situations, and a perplexing mystery. All these qualities make for a delightful cozy mystery. I hope you let Miranda James transport you to Charlie and Diesel’s world in Twelve Angry Librarians.
“Twelve Angry Librarians” is the excellent eighth book in Miranda James’ Cat in the Stacks cozy mystery series. I just love Charlie and Diesel, his Maine Coon cat who accompanies him to work and is almost human-like in his actions. I have enjoyed reading about Charlie and Diesel throughout the series but I especially enjoyed them in this book as Charlie is going through many life changes including having to make some important decisions about his future. I was especially happy to see Charlie's relationship with Helen Louise (which always seemed a bit flat to me) progress in this book and I look forward to seeing what happens next to the two of them. As for the mystery - it is brilliantly plotted with just the right amount of suspects and motives and an ingenious solution as to who the killer was. And the ending of the book brought a tear to my eye and I am eagerly looking forward to the next book in the series.
“Twelve Angry Librarians” is a clever cozy mystery.
I love Charlie and Diesel. However, this is the 2nd time in the series that there is a blatant copy editing error. I would like copy editors in particular to assist their authors in all aspects. A copy editor's role is MORE than performing a spell check
Charlie is less than pleased when he learns that one of the conference's keynote speakers is Gavin Fong, a slimeball who hit on his wife back in library school and was generally unpleasant. It doesn't take long to see that Gavin hasn't improved over the years, and he manages to make a few more people angry before dying, apparently of cyanide poisoning.
I've been reading this series all out of order. I started with the first book, listened to the tenth on audio, and then went back and read this, the eighth book. At the start of the series, Charlie was a part-time archivist at Athena College and, I think, a part-time public librarian. In this book, he'd somehow become interim director of Athena College's library - I guess the library didn't have any other senior members who wanted or were able to take the role? At some point I need to read the previous book.
At any rate, this book was probably the best of the three I've read. The mystery was interesting, especially as things became a little more complicated. Charlie and Chief Deputy Kanesha Berry had a good rhythm, compared to the first book. Charlie poked around for info but repeatedly reminded himself that this wasn't his job and he needed to back off sometimes. If he did find out anything potentially useful, he passed it on to Kanesha ASAP. Meanwhile, she did her job and only kept him in the loop as much as necessary. At the end of the book, instead of a dramatic Big Reveal or confrontation at the conference, Charlie sat down with Kanesha and told her his theory about what happened, which she could confirm or deny based on the results of her own more in-depth investigation.
I enjoyed the library aspects, which were generally accurate but did have some issues. The conference felt like a real library conference, with believable session topics. I think this is the first fiction book I've ever read that has mentioned AACR2 and RDA (the previous and current cataloging rules). And yes, Gavin's speech would definitely have angered everyone in the room. There was a bit more drama than I'm used to at real library conferences (I'm not just talking about murder), but I suppose it wasn't too far-fetched.
A couple things I thought were a little off: the overall reaction to the murder and Charlie's line of thought concerning liaison librarians.
If a person was murdered at a conference, wouldn't the police potentially have had to keep everyone there longer than expected? I thought it was odd that not a single person seemed to be worried that they might not be able to leave when planned. No one even asked about it.
And then the liaison librarian thing.
Liaison librarian issues aside, I enjoyed this and plan to read more of this series.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
Language
Original publication date
Physical description
ISBN
Local notes
DDC/MDS
Fic Mystery James |