Greer Hogan #4
Since the first book in this series (The Unkindness of Ravens), librarian Greer Hogan has been working through the aftermath of her husband’s murder. While she’s upright and functional, his death feels unresolved, and she’s not so sure the right person is in prison. While she has a job, she’s taken on a temporary one in New York City, archiving the collection of a magician. The gig comes with an apartment across the street, and the archiving job gives her the flexibility she needs for sleuthing. It also comes with an assistant: the aptly named “Grim” (short for Grimaldi), a former magician himself, is helping out by archiving the straight up magic tricks part of the collection, while Greer herself sticks to books. She decides to trust him early on and he proves to be incredibly useful.
Greer begins her search by returning to her husband’s office and meeting with the remaining corporate officers of the company, ostensibly to make sure there’s nothing she missed in the office clean up that followed his death, but really to get a beady eye on them and see what secrets they might be hiding. As she leaves, she catches the eye of an employee she doesn’t know and they end up meeting off site. He has secrets to tell.
She also meets with her former neighbors who are delighted to see her and are able to add some clues to a timeline she already has set up, further convincing her that the wrong man is indeed in prison for the crime.
Hilliard does a nice job setting up Greer’s very interesting job, her personality, and the way she’s dealing with her grief (partially, of course, by investigating her husband’s murder). She brings you right into Greer’s life and you are rooting for her to figure out what happened. The clues turn out to be pretty tricky and Greer assembles a team – a former assistant of her husband’s joins a couple of neighbors and the ever useful Grim.
She and Grim keep just on the right side of the law. Greer’s righteous anger is inflamed when a man is attacked on her parent’s porch, and dealing with this incident out of town also gives her some perspective into her ongoing investigation. The police aren’t so convinced that there’s any connection between the crimes in this book and her husband’s murder, so she and Grim are often exploring on their own.
This was paced a bit slowly. I enjoyed the characters and the setting, and the resolution and the clues it rested on were pretty clever. This is a very pleasant and intelligent read. — Robin Agnew