Murder by the Book

Murder by the Book opens Lauren Elliott's Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery series. Addie Greyborne spent years handling rare volumes at the Boston Public Library, and left the city carrying two unsolved losses: her fiance's murder and her father's fatal car accident.

An inheritance from a great-aunt brings her to Greyborne Harbor, the seaside town her family founded in colonial times, along with Greyborne Manor and a collection of first editions substantial enough to stock a bookshop of her own. The new life lasts about as long as it takes for a local merchant to turn up dead and for the police to arrest Addie's friend Serena, who runs the tea shop nearby.

With a rare book at the center of the case and her own name attached to it by association, Addie does what she has always done with an old volume: follows the provenance until it gives up the truth. Classic cozy mystery, bookish setting, no graphic content.