Jenn McKinlay’s latest Library Lover’s Mystery has one of my favorite covers, and The Plot and the Pendulum is one of my favorite books in the series as well. McKinlay’s descriptions of the scenery and weather in Connecticut in October tie in beautifully with the mystery itself. Here’s just one sentence to introduce you to the setting and story. “It was very much a Poe day outside, with a certain feeling of menace in the chilly air.”

It’s very much a Poe time of year for Briar Creek where Lindsey Norris is the library director. It’s time for the crafternoon program, a book discussion while the readers eat and do a craft. Lindsey’s interrupted, though, when a library patron wants to talk to the director. William Dorchester is just in town for a short time to sell the family mansion so he can use the proceeds to put his mother in assistive living. He wants to donate the family library, 12,000 books, to the library.

The women in the crafternoon session know all the gossip about William Dorchester. He hasn’t been back in Briar Creek in thirty years. He was in love with Grace Hartwell, but William’s mother wouldn’t let her marry him. Instead, she married Timothy Little, and then Grace disappeared six weeks after the wedding. She’s been called “the runaway bride”, but rumors in town were that Tim murdered his bride. It took years and a successful marriage to Barbara for Tim to outlive the gossip.

Lindsey and some of her friends, even her husband, Sully, spend evenings and weekends packing up the enormous collection of books at the Dorchester mansion. On one of those trips, she finds a hidden door, a hidden room, and a skeleton holding a copy of The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Even from that short glimpse before the police are called, Lindsey suspects the skeleton might be about thirty years old. And, all the gossip about Tim Little and William Dorchester will start up again in Briar Creek.

A cold case, a sinister mansion, a book collection, a skeleton, and Poe. McKinlay once again succeeds in the latest in her Library Lover’s Mystery series with a book filled with interesting characters, moments of humor to alleviate the suspense, and several chilling scenes. The Plot and the Pendulum is a perfect book for the season.

Jenn McKinlay’s website is https://www.jennmckinlay.com/

The Plot and the Pendulum by Jenn McKinlay. Berkley Prime Crime, 2022. ISBN 9780593101803 (hardcover), 304p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley for a journal review.