Murder Past Due - a Cat in the Stacks Mystery by Miranda James

Published by Berkley Prime Crime

Great interaction between all players, lots of suspense!
This is the first book in Miranda James' Cat in the Stacks series, reprinted. Let me say first that I loved the interaction between Diesel, a rescued Maine Coon cat, and the other characters in the story. So much so, that I want a Maine Coon cat! The book is well-written and characters fully formed, not always found in the first book of a series. There appears to be a good balance among the characters.

The storyline was full of suspense and twists right to the end. When best-selling author Godfrey Priest is killed, it soon becomes clear that almost everyone had a reason to kill him. A mean-spirited and hateful snob of a character not above stealing another's works, it is a wonder he lived so long. Sadly, he leaves behind the one person who might have cared about him, his newly discovered son Justin, who just happens to be boarding at the home of our main protagonist, Godfrey's old high school acquaintance, Charlie Harris, librarian and book archivist and owner of said cat. Without Charlie's help with Diesel's assistance, the crime might never have been solved.

This series has it all, compassion, spite, good, bad, and characters that bounce off each other in many ways. A great start to a new cozy series.