Death Books a Return

Tragedy can come in so many ways - the death of a teenager gone unsolved, due to his race. "Death Books a Return" tells of Juanita Wills, a librarian in the heartland of the country who reads about the unsolved murder of a black high school student more than forty years ago. She begins to dig deeper, hoping to find the truth and bring some semblance of justice, if decades late. But there are those who prefer the past stay buried. "Death Books a Return" is an exciting mystery with a non-typical protagonist, highly recommended.

Moving past the Scrappy Librarian tag, this was a nice read. Juanita Wills, head librarian, is writing a history of Wyndham, OK, and trying to solve an unsolved 1959 murder of a black teen, Luther Dunlap. During that era of blatant segregation, people from Bryson's Corner, the neighboring "black town" weren't welcome in Wyndham other than as daytime servants. The one exception was when the school superintendent insisted on a joint track meet, and most of Wyndham wasn't happy that they lost most races, some to Luther, especially as it was rumored that he was dating a white girl. When his tortured body was found on the track field, there was barely a pro forma investigation until Juanita gets involved. It helps that she's dating a local police detective, although he emphatically does not provide her with evidence in the case, something that usually irritates me in other mysteries of this type. I, personally, prefer that that police keep confidential information that way rather than providing it to their amateur lovers. The author also has Juanita providing most of the information she finds to the police and acting like a relatively-sensible adult rather than a TSTL heroine, although she also manages to come close to death twice during the investigation. I did guess the primary villain because of the part the character plays in the story, but that didn't take away from my reading pleasure. Adverb-haters will not approve of the writing (and a few could have been deleted), but it generally is easy to enjoy without calling attention to itself. The dialog is definitely believable as are most characters. If you like a traditional mystery with a bit of social ethics, this is a title for you.