Dig: A Morgue Mama Mystery

When an old college friend is murdered, shot in the head at a landfill, 68-year-old librarian Maddy Sprowls is willing to work overtime to help the police discover the culprit in Corwin's winning second cozy to feature the head of the Hannawa (Ohio) Herald-Union 's "morgue" (after 2003's Morgue Mama: The Cross Kisses Back ). Digging in the newspaper's files, Maddy uncovers a decades-old unsolved murder that took place during her student days and wonders if the two crimes could be connected. A game old bird battling loneliness and the prospect of retirement, she has a tendency to digress about local landmarks and such trivia as how to make her favorite sandwich. But once Maddy starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together, the plot picks up and builds to an exciting and fitting conclusion. Agent, Martin Shepard. (Nov.)