Past due for murder

In Gilbert's so-so third Blue Ridge Library mystery (after 2018's Shelved Under Murder), the relationship between Amy Webber, the plucky director of the Taylorsford, Va., Library, and her choreographer beau, Richard Muir, heats up. In one amusing scene, Richard's difficult parents meet-and size up-Amy. Meanwhile, dance student Lacey Jacobs goes missing, and Richard is the last person to see her before her disappearance, thus becoming a person of interest for the police. Amy's ex-boyfriend Charles Bartos, a music professor, is also drawn into the case, as is abrasive folklorist Ramona Raymond. Until a body turns up well into the book, Amy keeps busy researching the disappearance of two women back in 1879 and what might be supernatural doings in the woods. The plot moves slowly, weighed down by backstory. That Amy's romantic triumphs and travails overshadow the crime solving won't bother cozy fans. Agent: Frances Black, Literary Counsel. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A library director's past and present lovers are the leading suspects in a case of murder.Amy Webber has been helping university lecturer and folklorist Mona Raymond research legends about fairies, missing girls, hidden gold, and mysterious lights from the Blue Ridge Mountain area, where Amy lives with her aunt. Mona is telling stories at a Girl Scout bonfire when Charles Bartos, a pianist, composer, and professor at nearby Clarion University who'd stolen Amy's heart and then dumped her, suddenly appears. Mona lashes out at him, accusing him of stealing her research for one of his compositions. Charles had recently returned to the house he built in the mountains after the woman who replaced Amy was killed in a hit-and-run. Now Lacey Jacobs, one of Mona's students, has suddenly vanished, and her friends are concerned. Amy's worried about her current love interest, Richard Muir, a talented dancer and choreographer who's suddenly become distant after working with Lacey in one of his classes. Richard was apparently the last person to see Lacey, who'd run from his office in tears. When the police look for Lacey, they find her in bad shape next to the body of Mona, who's in even worse shape after being shot. Amy, who has a good relationship with the police (Shelved Under Murder, 2018, etc.), can't believe that either Charles or Richard is a murderer. So she uses her sleuthing and research talents to determine who else might have it in for the two women. With Lacey in a coma and her relationship in danger, Amy uses every connection she can work and puts herself in mortal peril searching for the truth.A basic cozy-cum-romance that would have benefited from judicious pruning. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.