Nightcap Books

BOOK INFO

Title: Lost Books and Old Bones

Author: Paige Shelton

Publisher: Minotaur

Publish Date: April 3, 2018

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Series: Scottish Bookshop Mystery #3

My Rating: 3/5

BOOK BLURB

Set in Edinburgh, Scotland, Lost Books and Old Bones is a delightful new mystery by Paige Shelton, featuring bookseller and amateur sleuth Delaney Nichols.

Delaney Nichols, originally of Kansas but settling happily into her new life as a bookseller in Edinburgh, works at the Cracked Spine in the heart of town. The shop is a place filled with curiosities and surprises tucked into every shelf, and it’s Delaney’s job to research the rare tomes and obscure artifacts that people come to buy and sell. When her new friends, also students at the medical school, come to the shop to sell a collection of antique medical books, Delaney knows she’s stumbled across a rare and important find indeed. Her boss, Edwin MacAlister, agrees to buy the multivolume set, perhaps even to keep for his own collection.

But not long after the sale, one of Delaney’s new friends is found murdered in the alley behind the Cracked Spine, and she wonders if there is some nefarious connection between the origin of these books and the people whose hands they fell into. Delaney takes it upon herself to help bring the murderer to justice. During her investigation, Delaney she finds some old scalpels in the bookshop’s warehouse—she and discovers that they belonged to a long-dead doctor whose story and ties to the past crimes of Burke and Hare might be connected to the present-day murder. It’s all Delaney can do to race to solve this crime before time runs out and she ends up in a victim on the slab herself.

MY REVIEW

Delaney moved to Scotland from the US to work for a bookseller. She has been in Scotland for about a year, and has recently been friendly with a couple of the local medical students. One night, Delaney goes out with the medical students and meets some of their friends. The next morning, one of the women Delaney had met the night before is found murdered just outside the bookshop. Delaney is curious as to why the woman was outside the bookshop, and suspects it may have something to do with the bookshop’s “secret” warehouse.

Lost Books and Old Bones is the third book in the Scottish Bookshop Mystery series. This is the first book I have read in this series.

I love the setting. Delaney works for a bookshop in Scotland that specializes in rare books. Delaney was likable, though I wish I had read the first two books in the series to know more about her. Since reading Lost Bones and Old Books, I have checked with my local library and they have the first two books in the series. I’ll be picking them up soon to read them.

This cozy mystery was interesting and incorporated some history about the Burke and Hare murders that took place in Edinburgh 1828. Burke and Hare were two men who killed people and sold their corpses to a local doctor for dissection and study.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Books in the Scottish Bookshop Mystery Series:

1. The Cracked Spine
2. Of Books and Bagpipes
3. Lost Books and Old Bones
4. The Loch Ness Papers
5. The Stolen Letter
6. Deadly Editions
7. The Burning Pages
8. Fateful Words
9. The Poison Pen