Killer Librarian by Mary Lou Kirwin

Killer Librarian by Mary Lou Kirwin ISBN-13: 9781451684643 Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Pocket Books Released: November 27, 2012

Source: Advanced Reader Copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Back Cover:
Minnesota librarian Karen Nash embarks on her dream trip to London even though the love of her mid-life, Dave, dumped her hours before takeoff. When she spies him at the airport with a young honey on his arm, she's so angry that she thinks of schemes for Dave’s untimely demise.

After landing, she checks into a cozy B & B run by charming bibliophile Caldwell Perkins. Soon she’s spilling tears in her pint at the corner pub, sharing her heartbreak saga with a stranger. When she sobers up, she begins to fear that she accidentally set an assassin on her ex's tail! Then she finds a B & B guest dead and wonders if it really was a natural death. If the matter isn't cleared up, several of the guests will always think the wife killed her husband. Karen decides to set things right.


My Review:
Killer Librarian is a romance with a cozy mystery. The focus was on her getting over her ex-boyfriend and falling in love with someone new. Everyone she met seemed to have been so hurt by a break-up that they considered killing their ex, so she got a lot of sympathy. And when she thinks she accidentally sent an assassin after her ex, she realized she doesn't really want him dead...and wondered what she ever saw in him since they really didn't have much in common. As wacky as the assassin bit was, it did provide a way to get Karen more quickly over her ex so she could move on.

I didn't really like Karen at the beginning because she didn't seem to like who she was and kept pretending to be things she wasn't. However, I did like how she did eventually get tired of living a lie and was brave enough to admit the truth in the hopes of being loved for who she was.

The mystery was clue-based, but much more time was spent on sight-seeing or spending time with Caldwell than in trying to find clues about whodunit. It was easy for Karen to get a confession. The setting description gave a good idea of what London is like. The characters were interesting and weren't cliche, not even small-part characters like a shop owner who sold Karen a shawl (loved that gal).

There was a very minor amount of explicit British bad language. Unmarried sex was implied, but there were no sex scenes. Overall, I'd recommend this novel to romance readers who don't mind some mystery thrown in.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.