Arthur Pinch just inherited his dead uncle's job. There's just one catch: the last guy who held it was murdered. Fired on a Tuesday and dumped by his fiancée six weeks later, Arthur has nothing left to lose - so when a lawyer hands him a one-way bus ticket to a town called Nether Hollow, he takes it. What he finds at the end of the road is a place that doesn't appear on any map: a hidden town where retired storybook characters have quietly settled down, where the Archive's books talk, gossip, flirt, and occasionally escape their own covers, and where his great-uncle Mortimer - forty years the town's beloved Head Librarian - was found dead at his desk of a "heart attack" that a great many clean fingernails say otherwise. Now Arthur's the new Librarian, whether he wanted the job or not. He's got a sharp-tongued Assistant Archivist who trusts him about as far as she can throw an encyclopedia, a sarcastic cat who's seen three Librarians come and go, a retired dragon with anger issues and abandonment issues in roughly equal measure, and exactly one working theory: whoever silenced his uncle is still walking around town, smiling, waiting to see if the new guy asks too many questions. He's going to ask all of them. What's inside: - A supernatural comedy cozy fantasy mystery with a body count of exactly one, a laugh count considerably higher - A hidden town full of runaway storybook characters, talking books, and one very judgmental card catalog - A reluctant hero who'd rather be filing insurance claims than solving a murder - and isn't nearly as bad at it as he thinks - A slow-burn, low-heat romance that never once gets in the way of the mystery - No graphic violence, no cliffhanger - a complete, satisfying standalone with a proper ending Perfect for readers who love cozy mysteries with a fantastical twist, books about books, found-family small towns, and heroes who solve crimes with kindness, curiosity, and a truly inadvisable amount of sincerity. A wonderful gift for anyone who's ever wished their local library had a little more magic in it - and a killer to catch.
