Review: Prologue to Murder by Lauren Elliott

Kerry Hammond is here to discuss the latest book by Lauren Elliott, which contains one dead librarian and possible pirate treasure in a New England town.

Prologue to Murder by Lauren Elliott was released on April 30, in Mass Market Paperback, by Kensington publishers. It’s the second book in the Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery series featuring bookstore owner Addie Greyborne. Addie, a former researcher at the Boston Public Library, has left the big city and moved into the house she inherited from her aunt. It’s located in a small New England town that was founded by the Greyborne family.

Having family ties to the town doesn’t seem to get you anywhere with the locals, and in Prologue to Murder Addie finds herself the subject of some pretty malicious gossip by local newspaper columnist “Miss Newsy.” No one knows the identity of the columnist, but everyone seems to think she has the right to play fast and loose with the truth since the column is only gossip. Miss Newsy even ties a local librarian’s disappearance to Addie.

To make matters worse, her relationship with Marc, the police chief, starts to cool down when a tall blond named Lacey arrives in town. Lacey has a past with Marc and clearly intends that it be rekindled. Lacey has made it her mission to turn everyone against Addie so she can have Marc all to herself. When the missing librarian is found dead, Addie is questioned as a suspect. She quickly realizes that if she doesn’t find out who the murderer is, she could wind up taking the fall.

Addie’s hormones were working overtime at the start of the book and she seemed quite preoccupied with her feelings for the police chief. I continued reading and was happy to learn that they did calm down a bit. I’m glad I stayed with it because I really enjoyed the mystery. I liked how the author worked the pirate legends from the area into the plot and the story kept me guessing until the end.

I felt slightly left out of the backstory from book one. Usually I don’t have a problem jumping into a series midway through, but here I wished I had read the first book so that I was privy to everything that had happened to the characters. I might recommend starting with Murder by the Book, the first in the series, and then diving into this one.

This book was provided to Mystery Playground by the publisher. The review was fair and completely independent.

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