The Spook in the Stacks: A Lighthouse Library Mystery

Gates (a pen name for Vicki Delaney) graduates from mass market to hardcover with her lively fourth Lighthouse Library mystery (after 2016’s Reading Up a Storm). A few days before Halloween, recently retired multimillionaire Jay Ruddle and his grown granddaughter, Julia, visit the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library in Nags Head, N.C. Jay, an Outer Banks native, is considering giving the library his extensive collection of 16th- to 18th-century documents regarding North Carolina’s nautical history. When he is found strangled in the rare book room a few days later, the police suspect Julia, who wanted to keep the collection in the family and recently quarreled with her grandfather about its disposition. Theodore Kowalski, a rare-book collector who has taken a shine to Julia, begs assistant librarian Lucy Richardson to investigate. Book lovers will envy Lucy’s dream of a life, working in a wonderful library, surrounded by amusing friends, not to mention a fine feline companion and a handsome suitor. Cozy fans will look forward to her further adventures. Agent: Kim Lionetti, BookEnds Literary Agency. (June)