Synopsis

What holds more secrets in the library: the ancient books shelved in the stacks or the people who preserve them?

Liesl Weiss has been (mostly) happy working in the rare books department of a large university, managing details and working behind the scenes to make the head of the department look good. But when her boss has a stroke and she’s left to run things, she discovers that the library’s most prized manuscript is missing.

Liesl tries to sound the alarm and inform the police about the missing priceless book but is told repeatedly to keep quiet to keep the doors open and the donors happy. But then a librarian goes missing as well. Liesl must investigate both disappearances, unspooling her colleagues’ pasts like the threads of a rare book binding as it becomes clear that someone in the department must be responsible for the theft. What Liesl discovers about the dusty manuscripts she has worked among for so long—and about the people who preserve and revere them—shakes the very foundation on which she has built her life.

This book releases on January 25, 2022

Amazon * B&N * Bookshop * Kobo

Review

As a book lover, I have always known about rare books and special collections that are held by most university libraries and other libraries, not including what is held by private collectors. It is amazing to think about how these books impacted the world around them when books were rare. It took a lot to print a book, much more than we see today.

Liesl is called in to temporarily run the library at her university when the current department head ends up in the hospital. What she, or anyone else for that matter, expects is to find that several books have gone missing including a recent acquisition. What ensues is a twisted road of clues and the end result was a bit surprising but not too surprising once the pieces fell into place.

I will admit that I didn’t care much for Liesl. She does not come across as a strong and capable woman that was second in charge of this library. She had her strengths, but she didn’t seem to think many things through that she wanted to do, like call the police when the book was discovered missing. The university president had told her to not involve them only because he was concerned about perception and what the donors would think. However, she kept insisting at every turn and while I understood why she wanted to involve the police, she had been expressly told to not contact them so why did she keep bringing it up? She has quite an interesting past too as we find out near the end of the book. It was something of a surprise.

I thought that this book gave the reader a good insight into libraries and the lengths they go to when acquiring new pieces and dealing with donors. I was surprised at how little the characters seemed to talk to each other in this book. Not even Liesl and her husband, John, seemed to talk to each other and Liesl fueled her unhappiness with alcohol. There were conversations but they seemed shallow and flat. This book does contain a mystery but it doesn’t really pick up until about the 75-80% mark. Then the last part of the book flows quickly and smoothly.

Overall this was a fascinating book but it seemed to move at a slower pace until the end. We give it 3 1/2 paws up.