Six months after applying for and not getting her dream job, Faith Newberry is suddenly offered the librarian position she had wanted in A Novel Murder by Elizabeth Penney. When the woman hired by Castleton Manor, a mansion turned retreat center, suddenly fails to show up for work without notice, Faith gets hired in her place. The first day of Faith’s work, the retreat is hosting a conference for a group of Sherlockians, Sherlock Holmes aficionados. But when Faith goes to show the group the manor’s extremely rare and valuable first edition of the first Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet, she discovers that the copy is an obvious fake.
With the librarian job comes a chance
to live in a cottage on the grounds, and on Faith’s first night, her cat, Watson, digs up a purse from under a bush. Faith is greatly disturbed to find in it the ID of Doris Lincoln, the librarian Faith has replaced. Then the next afternoon, Watson disappears, and Faith figures out that he is inside the walls in what is a boarded up stairwell formerly used by the live-in servants. When she and Wolfe Jaxon, the owner of the manor and great-grandson of the man who assembled the highly valuable collection, get into the wall to find Watson, they discover a foot, and it is connected to the body of Doris Lincoln. Faith gets immersed in the mystery further when the police consider her the chief suspect in the murder. To keep out of jail, Faith has to navigate all sorts of difficult circumstances to solve the crimes.
I enjoyed getting to listen to A Novel Murder and spending time with a librarian in a large manor. I connected with the character of Faith and had fun seeing her apply her skills doing academic research to her new research into the murder and the stolen book. It came across creatively and added a creative touch to the book. However, I found the police’s suspicion of Faith to seem unrealistic, since she has never met the victim and others around not only knew her but sometimes had motive to want to kill Faith.
The audiobook is performed by Ann Richardson, who sounds to me as if she is smiling in the happier scenes. However, I felt that her portrayal of the more dramatic scenes could have exhibited more intensity, as they did not show enough excitement.
Overall, I enjoyed listening to A Novel Murder. The concept of Castleton Manor was fun, though it seemed a lot like a take-off of Julie Hyzy’s Manor House Mystery Series. I give the book four stars.
