This is the 5th book in the A Cat in the Stacks Mystery series.  I loved this outing in the series!  Charlie Harris, a librarian and sleuth, and his sidekick Diesel, the giant Maine Coon cat, become entangled in a murder mystery involving classic mystery series books for children in the ilk of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys to name some of the most popular ones.  The fictional Veronica Thane series that is at the center of The Silence of the Library   is closely modeled on Nancy Drew, perhaps a more over the top version, and the centenarian author character is modeled on Mildred Wirt Benson, the original Nancy Drew author.

The mystery plot was  very well done and interestingly crafted in that the Charlie Harris story is interspersed with readings from a Veronica Thane novel, so the reader goes through both mysteries together to come to the reveal.  The parallelism was a fun plot device for the reader.

This mystery series does have several recurring characters, such as Charlie’s children and Helen Louise, a love interest.  These relationships have developed over time so reading the series in order is probably ideal, however this story can stand on its own, especially for lover’s of Nancy Drew type books.

A great cozy mystery read! Highly recommended!

As an aside, the author writes this series as Miranda James, a pseudonym, but writes the Simon Kirby-Jones series under his name, Dean James.  The Simon Kirby-Jones series is a different kind of cozy, a lot of fun and I really liked it.  I read that entire series.  I have now ordered a book from a third series by this author written under the name of Honor Hartman and can’t wait to give that a try.