Luck in the Library

There were no books by authors I recognized on the open shelves in the library's lobby.  There's a New Mysteries bookcase and a Large Print bookcase and New Fiction and Non-Fiction and Children's bookcases and nothing there caught my eye.  

I took a chance on the only mystery which didn't have another in the Detective So-and-So series on the cover.  I don't like picking up the backstory in the middle.  When I've chosen a book in the middle of a series I wonder about the minor characters who are referenced as having done something notable two books before.  

It turns out that The Busy Body is the first of three novels by Kemper Donovan.  

I liked it.  Didn't love it but found myself thinking about it after I turned the last page.  Went to return it to the library and there on the New Mysteries shelf was Loose Lips, book 2 in the (so far) 3 book series.

These aren't my usual fare.  The author is an Agatha Christie junkie, and these are cozy mysteries with over the top characters.  The narrator is unnamed; for the first 50 pages or so of The Busy Body I wasn't sure what pronouns to use to refer to her.  That was annoying until it became obvious that this was one of the tropes of the series.  

It's called The Ghostwriter series, because that's what she is.  She's the literary brains behind other people's stories.  Anonymity is her gift.  There's a back story alluded to but not yet revealed.  There's catty dialog and great attention to tiny details;  I can describe every hair on every head of every character, every ingredient in the dishes served.  Those aren't details included in most mysteries, but they are crucial to these.

Like most cozies, they are short, hovering around 200 pages.  Unlike most mysteries, I didn't race through them.  The prose is dense and satisfying.  The characters are memorable and their words are often hilarious, though their actions are less so.  I've spent a fair amount of time today imaging myself on the Loose Lips' cruise ship; it's been a long time since that's happened.

There's one more book in the series.  I'm hopeful that it will show up on the shelf when Loose Lips is returned.  I'm feeing lucky.