Reviewed by Kristin
The flames erupting from a library book due date pocket on the
cover of How Can I Help You leapt out at me and cried “Read me, read
me!”
So I did.
Margo presents herself as a congenial librarian at the Carlyle
Public Library. She is ever so helpful to her library patrons, helping with a
returned book here, a computer login there. Margo’s coworkers have no reason to
suspect that she is hiding anything behind her pleasant demeanor. No one knows
that she used to be a nurse, one who walked off her last nursing job when
administrators began to question the unusual number of deaths on her shifts….
Patricia is new to the small town library. She is assigned to
the reference desk which has been empty for years due to lack of funding.
Patricia is fresh out of library school and Chicago. She is also trying to come
to terms with her rejections as an author, and plans to dedicate herself fully
to this new career path as a reference librarian.
Margo tries to mask her feelings of impatience with her
patients; no, she must call them patrons.
She has kept up her façade for quite some time, but it starts to slip right as
Patricia begins her new position. Patricia watches Margo, and becomes
intrigued. Could Margo really have a darkness within herself, or is it only
Patricia’s imagination? Patricia begins to scribble in a notebook, writing what
she sees and what she imagines. No, she is not writing a book, that part of her
life is over…isn’t it?
The story is told in alternating chapters from Margo and
Patricia’s points of view. As they get to know each other, each becomes
obsessed with what the other suspects or knows. The tension builds deliciously
with a couple of twists that I did not see coming. I won’t give too much away,
but this short novel is a delight and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys
books, libraries, or murder.
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