Charlie's daughter, Laura, is home for the summer teaching at the local college. She's come at the request of her ex-fiancé, who is an unpleasant character who subsequently gets himself killed. There are all kinds of suspects but the truth ends up coming out of left field a bit. One thing the first three books in this series share is multiple secrets revealed which confuse the motive of the killer and keep the suspense going. ( )

Charlie Harris is a librarian in his 50's who loves his enormous,3 foot- long, 50 lb. Maine Coon kitty, Diesel. This beautiful boy is excellent at providing help and comfort...mostly comfort, to anyone in his little world, that needs it, and he sometimes serves as a great listener for his "pet" human. Diesel, even though he is a cat, is high on the scope of feline intelligence...and did I mention that Diesel is a big, handsome boy with a purr that sounds like a diesel engine? Charlie has a habit of getting involved in murders. He seems to have a gift for tripping over dead bodies and inserting himself into police investigations. It’s a habit that the local police find very annoying and view as less than endearing. This case is close to home. Charlie’s daughter Laura is home for the summer, teaching a drama class at the local college where Charlie's library duties take place. She got the temporary position through the influence of the resident playwright at the university, Connor Lawton. Connor is a major pain in the posterior. Not just to Charlie, but to every person he comes in contact with. He’s rude, arrogant and downright insulting to everyone, so it's not surprising that no one likes him. It's also no surprise that no one mourns him when he’s found dead in his apartment. However, the long line of suspects...those who might want him dead, stretches as far as the eye can see. Once Connor is out of the way, whoever is behind his death turn their sights on Laura Harris, and her family finds itself under threat from everywhere. Charlie, who as usual, feels like it’s all up to him to figure out who is responsible before the killer manages to either kill his daughter or burn down his house with everyone inside. I loved the cat, and the other characters were okay. The mystery went on a bit too long but still it had a satisfactory ending. As you can guess, Diesel was my favorite character and mainly the reason I read the book. Put a cute animal on the cover and I'm putty in the publishers' hands:) ( )

Mystery

A personality-challenged playwright with whom Charlie Harris's daughter Laura had a brief affair becomes the playwright-in-residence at the university where Charlie works and Laura has also taken up a teaching post for one semester. Laura finds his body and is concealing something from the police.

“I’ve seen every episode of Murder, She Wrote , and I adore Angela Lansbury to pieces. But you’d have to be insane to let Jessica Fletcher within ten yards of your house."

The way Charlie Harris's track record is going, I don't think his household is in any position to cast aspersions on Jessica Fletcher. He said in the first book that the last murder in town was 7 or 8 years ago, and although I haven't been keeping count there must have been 6 or 7 murders in the books so far, which cover about a year. ( )

3.5 stars

Archivist and rare book cataloguer Charlie Harris’ adult daughter, Laura, has come “home” for a semester to teach acting at the local college. Unfortunately, the distasteful playwright Connor Lawson is also in town. He just rubs Charlie the wrong way! Not only does Connor happen to be working with Laura, Charlie finds out Laura once dated him, and he does not want to take no for an answer. It’s not long before Laura gets some threatening mail. And a bit later… someone is found murdered.

I do enjoy this series! As a librarian (and a cataloguer), I like the library tidbits included (the author is a library cataloguer). There’s some fun interaction between Charlie, Laura, and Charlie’s son, Sean (and a couple of boarders at Charlie’s house), too. And I have to mention Charlie’s smart Maine Coon cat (all 36 lbs of him!), although I do feel like Diesel wasn’t as much in this one as the others, but it’s been a while, so I might not be remembering. The murder doesn’t actually happen until about 1/3 of the way into the book, as the first bit is introductions to the characters. I really do enjoy this series and will be continuing. ( )