This is another mystery in the 12-part series of cozies starring Miss Helma Zukas, endearing librarian and amateur sleuth. I missed this book when I read the rest, but a friend shared her ebook version. This book is as enjoyable as the others, and kept me guessing till the climax as to who the murderer was. Includes an important subplot concerning Helma's love interest Police Chief Wayne Gallant. ( )

Ms. Zukas turns 42 and faces a series of crisis includign the launch of the local authors project, the disappearance of her cat and the sudden coolness of police chief Wayne Gallant along wiht enforced group sessions by her boss. A fun mystery. ( )

I do enjoy spending time with Miss Zukas and her friends, family and co-workers. In this entry to the series, Helma is kicking off a Local Authors reception and planning on highlighting them in displays in the library. One of their regulars, Molly, attends and reads her poem but on the way home is killed in a hit and run. This sets Helma off on a hunt to find the killer. She is hampered this time by her sudden estrangement from Chief of Police, Wayne Gallant.

She is, however, aided by friend Ruth, who is back in Seattle to visit for Helma's 42nd birthday. Helma is also distracted because Boy Cat Zukas has gone missing.

There are plenty of suspects, what with all the other local authors who were at the opening event. I didn't figure out the killer until Dereske let me know, which is pretty typical for me.

I think there is only one or two more books in this series. I will be sorry to come to the end of the Zukas mysteries but am so glad I found this series and have had many hours of enjoying the stories. ( )

Love Boy Cat Zukas.... ( )

I am thrilled to have Miss Zukas back - this is one of my favorite series! I love the stories, I love the humor, I love the evocation of place, and I love the writing, but I have a strong preference for character-driven stories, especially series, and that is one of the best part of these.

Wilhemina "Helma" Zukas has a very unusual personality, especially for the protagonist of a story. Methodical, meticulous, extremely neat and not particularly an animal lover, it is very unusual to have a character like this sympathetically portrayed. Authors generally to to either "cure" characters like this, having them discover that they really want to be loud, boisterous and reckless; or they turn out to be psychopaths.

Miss Zukas is an interesting mixture of individual certainty and slight social ineptness, especially when it comes to intimacy. She is certain of her values, her preferred way of life, and fearless in pursuit of matters of principle. She deals well enough enough with her colleagues, although she is not close to them, she is a perfect public servant to the patrons, and can be quite firm and forceful, but she is uncertain when it comes to close relationships, especially romantic, which in this book add greatly to her confusion.

Miss Zukas is balanced by her rather wild, artist friend, Ruth in what is in someways an unlikely pairing, but in other ways an understandable attraction of opposites. It supplies a great deal of the humor and human interest in the book. There is a nice cast of continuing minor characters as well.

Her reluctant relationship with the stray Boy Cat Zukas supplies a great deal of understated humor. Her mixture of fastidious relectance to have a pet and her inability to abandon an animal in need are very true to life.

There has been some concern about Miss Zukas as a librarian stereotype - being a librarian myself, I understand the concern. While someone like Miss Zukas might be likely to choose to be a librarian, I think that her colleagues are varied enough to make it clear that all librarians are not like Miss Zukas. The office politics, expecially with the library director, Ms. Moon, are only too real and too funny. The one thing that strikes me as odd is that Ms. Zukas seems to be able to get away from the library a lot, but she still works more than most literary characters.

In this story, Miss Zukas is having a midlife crisis and Ms. Moon leaps in to "help". Meanwhile, Boy Cat Zukas disappears, and Helma, although she really didn't want him in the first place, is still terribly worried. Just to add to her stress, her friend Ruth drops in for a visit while she resolves her own issues, nearly trashing Miss Zukas's apartment in the process. And this is before anyone gets killed!

I hope that this is only the beginning of a renewed spate of books. ( )