Cozy Corner: Death Overdue 

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a free cozy of this book in exchange for an honest review. As many of you know, I work for a public library, so I am always partial to books that take place in a library because I love the familiar setting, so I was really pleased to receive a copy of Allison Brook’s novel Death Overdue.

This cozy mystery is the first in the Haunted Library series which follows Carrie Singleton, a small-town librarian who meets a helpful ghost in the stacks of her public library. I ended up reading this book in one sitting because it was just so fun that I couldn’t put it down. Carrie was a great protagonist and was remarkably well fleshed out for being a cozy protagonist. She was interesting and flawed and relatable, and I loved how she interacted with her aunt and uncle. Carrie also has to deal with a workplace bully – something that I’m sure many of us have had to endure, and this adds to the relatability of the novel and provides many interesting, dynamic social interactions for the protagonist.

The plot of this cozy was really well-written. When Carrie invites a presenter to the library for a program on a local cold case, he claims to have new evidence about this long-unsolved murder but is murdered before he can reveal it. Now, the past and present intertwine as the investigation continues. Using her own resourcefulness, research skills, and the help of her newfound companions ghost, Carrie tries to track down the killer before he or she can strike again. There were some great twists and turns here and the plot was really fun to try to figure out.

I definitely recommend this one!