Lucy Arlington

Lila Wilkins was shocked the day she received a pink slip, but before she even left the building where she had worked for the past 20 years, she made a phone call. From unemployed to hired, from reporter at the "Dunston Herald" to intern for the Novel Idea Literary Agency, Lila would still be going to work the next day reporting to Ms. Bentley Burlington-Duke.

I loved this literary delight, a blend of great characters of diverse ages who enjoy friendship and new experiences within a mystery of twists.

One of the simple pleasures of reading cozy mysteries is the creativity of each author, who names the local businesses in the towns, which helps to develop picturesque settings as the mysteries take place. Here are a few of my favorites...
Expresso Yourself - coffee shop that is complete with piped-in acoustic guitar music and paintings by local artists on the walls.
Sherlock Holmes Realty - real estate office.
Catcher in the Rye - local sandwich shop.
How Green Was My Valley – organic food store with a mural of a farm scene on the side of the store.
Wonderland Playground – favorite location of the children and their moms.
The Secret Garden – gardening center.
Walden Woods Circle – renovated rental unit cottages were sold as private homes.

I hope you’ll visit Inspiration Valley in North Carolina. I’m looking forward to my next visit!

p.s. My confession: I know you shouldn’t laugh at another woman’s leading man, but when Lila’s mother, Althea, revealed the name of her leading man, I just couldn’t help myself. What a hoot of laughter burst forth from me!

Reviewer’s Note: Lucy Arlington is a pen name used by Susan Furlong.… (meer)

Lila gets the boot after twenty years as a reporter; as luck would have it (a lot of luck), her hometown of Dunstan, North Carolina, has a literary agency, and that agency has an opening for an intern. Lila is hired on the spot.

All of this happens in the first ten pages of Buried in a Book. Luckily that pace slows down – but the murder of what appears to be a homeless man pops up pretty quickly, and right on the sofa in A Novel Idea literary agency’s reception area!

This is the first mystery that I’ve read with an eye toward actually figuring out who the killer was; I caught little comments that I considered clues, made note of whose whereabouts were unknown at the time of the murders (yep – at least one more murder happens), and made an educated guess based on the evidence I found.

I was right – and I was right about the killer’s accomplice too; but I’m not considering that a deficit in the novel; I only got one killer right, and I worked this book like a jigsaw puzzle to see the whole picture.

Drawbacks: the main character repeatedly wished she could just rest her head on the broad shoulder of her love interest, so that he could make it all better and solve her problems for her. That’s such an outdated sentiment, even for a 2012 novel. I also couldn’t get past the unlikely setting of a fairly large literary agency handling bestselling authors operating outside of New York City, in a small town in North Carolina. The story was an easy read though, and there were some entertaining characters, including Lila’s psychic mother Althea.… (meer)

Lila is laid off from the local newspaper then lands a job at a literary agency where on her first day she is confronted with a body of a man who was chased out of the agency within an hour of Lila's arrival at the agency. Was it murder or something else?

I liked Lila. The agency has a cast of characters working at it. Their descriptions give a good picture of what each is like. Lila wants to know who the man is and who/what killed him so she decides to investigate no matter the cost to her. She also has a few possible romance partners. Her mother is a hoot and her son should have had a good spanking once or twice in his childhood so he wouldn't be so spoiled.

The story line was interesting. I liked how Lila works to solve the murder. She's wrong at times but keeps at it until she finds the answer. The world building is good. I look forward to more of the series.… (meer)