The Dark Library

Evans (the Justin Byrne series) delivers an elaborate historical mystery set in 1942 New York. Estella “E.” Ecker, 31, has reluctantly returned to her childhood home of Rockfall House, a Victorian mansion near the college town of Bentham-on-Hudson, after the disappearance of her mother and the sudden death of her father. Given her father’s position as dean of Bentham College, E. has no trouble landing a job in the English department, though it barely pays her enough to keep up her crumbling ancestral home. As E. nurses hopes that her mother is alive and preparing to return home (despite the police’s suspicion that she died by suicide), the new dean of Bentham College falls to his death from his office window, and the body of a long-dead young woman is found near Rockfall House. Suspecting that all of these developments might be connected, E. searches for clues in her father’s rare book library while pursuing a romance with one of her colleagues. Evans stuffs the plot with incidents until it nearly bursts, but she mostly pulls it off, thanks to immersive historical detail and a gratifying dénouement. Fans of gothic suspense will be delighted. Agent: Anne Hawkins, John Hawkins & Assoc. (June)