Out of Circulation (Cat in the Stacks #4)
by Miranda James
narrated by Erin Bennett
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f
Blurb:
The Ducote sisters are in a tiff with Vera Cassity over the location of this year’s library fundraising gala, and Charlie would rather curl up in a corner than get into the fray. It seems everyone – even his housekeeper Azalea – has it in for Vera. And at the gala, she gives them good reason, with a public display of rancor aimed at anyone who gets in her way.But those bitter words wind up being her last. When Charlie discovers Azalea standing over Vera’s dead body, it’s up to him – with a little help from Diesel – to clear Azalea’s name, and catch a killer before his last chapter is finished.
My Review
I received a free copy from Tantor Audio and voluntarily reviewed it.
This is the fourth book in the Cat in the Stacks Mystery series and I continue to enjoy this series. I was excited to return to Athena and spend some time reading about Charlie, his cat Diesel and the fun group of side characters around him. I like how this series has an older guy librarian as the main character, which is unusual for a cozy mystery series. The cat Diesel is a big part of the series and goes almost everywhere with Charlie.
This book has a new mystery for Charlie to solve. I thought the mystery was engaging and I enjoyed seeing it play out and try to figure out who did it. Azalea, Charlie’s housekeeper, is the main suspect this time and the usual detective can’t investigate as Azalea is her mother. That leaves it all to Charlie to figure it out. He has the Ducote sisters giving him direction and opportunity to snoop as well, but they have motive too. As well as plenty of others. There were some interesting reveals along the way and I liked when everything fell on it’s place toward the end. I liked how Charlie was the one to piece everything together. I thought I had it all figured out and while I was mostly correct, I realized someone else was the murderer even though I had the rest correct. The actual murderer made even more sense than the one I had in mind.
I like seeing more of Charlie in this book. It’s fun how previous books added some new side characters and now in this book we see how they all play a role in Charlie’s life. His son and daughter are both living in Athena again. He also has two boarders who live with him as well as Azalea his housekeeper who plays a larger role in this mystery. And his romance has developed more since the last book and there is a bit more about that in this book. I like them well enough together, but feel like it’s just missing something for me. This book introduces some new side characters as well that are relevant to the mystery.
This book got published earlier by Tantor than the first 3 and at the start I was a bit surprised with how the narrator sounded a bit differently, but I quickly got used it. I like the narrator for this series and how she does the different voices for the characters.
To summarize: This was another good one in this series. I liked the mystery and seeing it all play out. Plenty of suspects in this one and I liked the interesting tidbits that came to light as Charlie investigates. I was excited to figure things out toward the end before Charlie did, but actually guessed the murderer wrong even though I was right about everything else and the actual murderer made even more sense than my theory. I like reading about Charlie and seeing him interact with the group of recurring side characters around him as well as some new side character related to the mystery. The narrator for this series is a good one and I enjoy listening to this series.
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