Book Review: Crime and Parchment by Daphne Silver (Rare Books Cozy Mysteries #1)

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Strong characters in an interesting, believable mystery

Cons: A bit too much at the beginning set up unrealistic expectations for me

The Bottom Line:

Hunting book treasure

Stumbling on dead body

In this fun debut

Family and Lost Books

I heard a lot of great things about Crime and Parchment when it came out last year.  It went on to win the Agatha for Best First Novel.  Now that I’ve finally made the time to read Daphne Silver’s debut mystery, I can see why.

This is the first book in the Rare Books Cozy Mysteries and introduces us to Juniper Blume, a librarian for the Library of Congress.  She is surprised when she receives a message from her ex-brother-in-law saying that he has information about the covers of the Book of Kells and insisting that Juniper meet him in Rose Mallow, Maryland, the small town where Juniper and her sister spent their summers with their grandmother.  Juniper is skeptical – what would these covers missing from Ireland centuries ago be doing in Maryland?

Still, Juniper can’t resist showing up.  Even if it means a painful reunion with her sister.  The two have grown apart, and there is plenty of blame to go around.  But when Juniper goes to the meeting, she only finds a dead body.  And her ex-brother-in-law is now missing.  What is going on?

This is a lot going on at this book, especially at the beginning.  Since this is the first book in the series, we are meeting all the characters, series regulars and suspects alike, plus being introduced to the main plot and the subplots.  The book does a good job of juggling all of that, and I was never lost.  Maybe it did too good a job.  I felt that the pace slowed down a bit as the book went along, but I think that was because there was so much at the beginning, I began to expect that pace to continue.  When I went back to think about things, the pace was actually pretty consistently steady.  So I think this is more my perception than reality.

I was impressed that the author provided a plausible explanation of how these covers could have been in Maryland instead of Ireland, where they were last seen centuries ago.  This added a bit of a treasure hunt aspect to things, which I really enjoyed.

And the plot was good.  It kept me engaged and guessing as Juniper went along trying to solve it.  I couldn’t wait to see how it was going to be resolved, and everything made sense when she pieced things together.

Juniper and her family have some things to work through, and I appreciated that part of this book as well.  It could have easily crossed the line into soap opera, but it doesn’t, which was nice.  Were things a little too easy?  Possibly, but I still loved where it went.  I’m certainly interested in seeing where things go moving forward for these characters.

Crime and Parchment really is a strong debut.  It’s easy to see why it got all the praise it did.  I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to these characters when the next book comes out.