Murder by the Minster by Helen Cox
Genre: cozy mystery
Publisher: Quercus
Publication Date: July 1, 2019
Summary:
“Meet Kitt Hartley: librarian, trilby-wearer, taker of no nonsense… detective?
“It’s a perfectly normal day for Kitt Hartley at her job at the University of the Vale of York library, until Detective Inspector Halloran arrives at her desk to tell her that her best friend, Evie Bowes, is under suspicion of murder. Evie’s ex-boyfriend Owen has been found dead – with a fountain pen stabbed through his heart – and all the evidence points to her.
“Kitt knows there is no way Evie could murder anyone – let alone Owen, who she adored. Horrified that the police could have got it so wrong, Kitt decides there’s only one thing to do: she’s going to investigate Owen’s murder herself. She’s read hundreds of mystery novels – how hard can it be?
“With the help of her assistant Grace, and the occasional hindrance of the library’s eccentric regulars, Kitt summons up all her investigative powers (absorbed over years of reading everything from Agatha Christie to Ian Rankin) and gets to work.
“She soon discovers that down the quaint streets of York lie darker doings than she’d ever dreamed, but she needs to watch her step: the murderer is watching her. And they haven’t finished killing yet…” (from Goodreads blurb of Murder by the Minster)
Thanks to Netgalley and Quercus books for an advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is one review I hope doesn’t come back to bite me. I hope it doesn’t come across as unduly harsh. I originally had a long, detailed review that included spoilers. This version is still available on Goodreads, though I’ve hidden all the spoilers.
Update 7/7/23: I upgraded this book’s star rating on Goodreads. Upon reflection, I realized that I was probably just not the target audience, or that it was a mismatch between book and reader, and that I was perhaps a little too harsh in my criticisms of Cox’s book. After all, Cox really can write well!
On the positive side, Helen Cox obviously knows how to write. (She’s a multi-published romance novelist.) I didn’t feel like pulling my eyeballs out while reading, and the story kept me reading from the first page to the last. Kudos for that!
However, there are some serious issues with the book as a mystery and as a novel. I’ll try to explain.
1. Unbelievable/improbable elements.
A. The police procedures.
Suspects are arrested on flimsy, circumstantial evidence. The victims were poisoned with a chemical used in nail polish remover (after being drugged). This, obviously–or at least obviously to the characters of the novel–means that the killer must be connected with a nail salon. This is simply bizarre. Nail polish remover and its ingredients are readily available, and anyone (including people who don’t wear nail polish) can buy it over the counter. Why are the police adamant on this point?
B. Kitt’s “investigation”
At multiple points, Kitt questions strangers about their relationships and such to the victims and/or suspects, often without even stating her name or connection to the case. She has absolutely no reason to be meddling.
Yet almost no one pushes back at her demands for answers to questions she has no business asking. Frankly, this is absurd.
2. Inconsistencies
A. Kitt’s social media use
Kitt tells a police officer early in the book,
“I don’t have time to be messing around on social media.” (Murder by the Minster, chapter 8)
I can buy that. But later, she manages to do things with Facebook that are impossible without an account.
It’s obvious that she cannot have a Facebook account because if she did, she wouldn’t be ignorant of how to ignore a friend request, which is basic FB 101 knowledge. She’s also unaware that there are apps to see who’s viewed one’s profile. Grace must step in and inform her of these facts.
Yet this is a woman who is a librarian. These are pros who know how online research works. Furthermore, she’s only 35. That’s a few years younger than I am. By the time Kitt went to the university, almost every young person (in my social circles) could be expected to know how digital research worked. Certainly by the time she graduated, people were using social media! How can someone who came of age during the cyber revolution be this ignorant?
B. Evie’s relationship with another suspect
When the police arrest another woman, Evie claims, “I don’t know her that well.” The two women met during get-togethers with a mutual friend’s university friends. Yet she seems to know far too about her for such a casual acquaintanceship.
3. Dislike of main character.
To me, Kitt came off as rude, unnecessarily sarcastic, arrogant, and mean, often dismissing others who aren’t as “intelligent” as she is. (Such as Ruby, a quirky library visitor and the only character I actually liked.) She’s willing to drag in Grace, her assistant, into the investigation, overlooking that this could put Grace in physical and legal jeopardy. While she is protective of Evie, which I like, it was difficult for me to have sympathy for this woman.
If she’d been much older, I might’ve found her ignorance a bit less off-putting. If she’d been a little more self-aware of her own short-comings, I might’ve liked her better.
Conclusion
As I said earlier, Cox knows how to write. There are lovely descriptions. There are fun references to classic mystery novels, such as the work of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The developing romance between Halloran and Kitt is well-done.
I really wanted to like the librarian-as-sleuth premise for a mystery series. For years, my mother was a paraprofessional librarian. I grew up around libraries and some incredibly intelligent librarians.
I understand this is a cozy mystery, and I can’t expect the same level of investigative accuracy as in a crime novel. Even so, there was no reason for the number of improbabilities in the book. Maybe other readers can suspend their disbelief and enjoy Murder by the Minster. Unfortunately, I couldn’t.
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