Buried in a Book by Lucy Arlington

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Journalist Lila Wilkins’ life is upended when she suddenly loses her job. To make matters worse, her son has been caught joyriding with a couple of friends on the local high school’s football field, leaving damaged bleachers in his wake.  Now not only is Lila unemployed, but she owes a lot of money.  With no other alternative, she applies for a job at the Novel Ideas literary agency, puts her house up for sale, and moves in with her mother—not something she’d planned to do at age 45.

Her job at the agency consists mainly of reading and largely rejecting query letters which come in at an alarming rate.  At least they mostly arrive via email, but then one actually shows up in person.  The man’s clothing is disreputable looking, he has an unpleasant odor, and he’s carrying flowers.  Apparently, he’s something of a regular and possibly homeless; no one pays him any attention except to tell him to leave.

When he turns up dead, no one seems to care except for Lila who can’t help but feel she should have at least taken a look at his query letter. . . which seems to have disappeared.

This is a first in the Novel Ideas series, and it handled being a first in series book very well.  It never really bogged down while introducing the characters and setting.  I liked Lila and some of her cohorts at the agency; I thought her mother, Althea, was a hoot—she does psychic readings and is always warning Lila about potential disasters.  I was less enchanted with her son, Trey, who seemed to feel he could do no wrong; at least by the end he seemed to be growing up a bit.

This was a light, cozy mystery with some literary references and a vaguely North Carolina setting of “Inspiration Valley.” It’s all a bit wish fulfillment, which made perfect sense to me when I realized that “Lucy Arlington” was actually a pseudonym for Ellery Adams (who has other idealized locales in her books) and Sylvia May.  I’m definitely interested in reading more, though I did notice that they wrote only the first three books before handing the series over to Susan Furlong.  I’ll be interested to see if I detect a difference.

The books in the series are:

Buried in a Book

Every Trick in the Book

Books, Cooks, and Crooks

Played by the Book

Off the Books