Review: One Book in the Grave by Kate Carlisle

The fifth book in the Bibliophile Mysteries by Kate Carlisle, starts off with Brooklyn Wainwright heading into the Covington Library to see her ex-fiance and good friend Ian McCullough, head curator of the Covington. Ian has a rare book that he wants Brooklyn to take a look at a restore.  On the way in, Brooklyn has a run in with her arch-nemesis Minka LaBoeuf.  Run ins with Minka always leave Brooklyn on edge and feeling just a little out of sorts.  So she is shocked to find out that the book that Ian has given her was once stolen.  She knows because it was a book that she had given to a former friend and commune member, Max Adams for his engagement party.  Max had apprenticed with Abraham Karastovsky during the same time as Brooklyn, but had gone into papermaking instead of book binding like Abraham and Brooklyn.  The worst part was that Max had died in a car crash about 3 years ago and shortly after his death, the book was stolen from his fiance's house.  

Brooklyn finds her first body when she heads over to the bookseller, Joseph Taylor, who sold the book to Ian.  Joe was even given instructions from the person he got the book from to offer it to the Covington first.  When Brooklyn arrives at the bookseller's store, she finds him dead.  His throat was slit with a papermaking knife.  Brooklyn calls the homicide inspector, Janice Lee, that she has been worked with on previous murders.  After also calling her boyfriend, Commander Derek Stone, she discovers that her car tires have been slashed with another papermaking knife.  This one has the name MAX carved into the end of the handle.  

In this book there are quite a few more twists and turns than in the other books in the series.  Also, Brooklyn finally gets a chance to sit down and talk to her parent's spiritual adviser  Avatar Robson Benedict, aka Guru Bob, about her feelings about finding dead bodies.  Guru Bob tells her that he believes that she is finding them because the spirits of the deceased know that she will seek to find justice for them.  Not exactly the answer Brooklyn was looking for, but she does admit that she is wants to find justice for those who can't for themselves any longer. 

We had the usual cast of secondary characters, including Brooklyn's parents, her best friend Robin, her neighbors: Suzie, Vinnie, Jeremy and Sergio, and of course Gabriel.  The secondary characters are becoming more and more interesting and fleshed out.  Minka kept showing up in unexpected places and is really becoming one of the those characters you love to hate.

I really liked this book, but am dragging my feet about reading the next one, simply because I don't want the series to be at a stopping point until the next one is released.  It got 4 stars from me on Goodreads.