Reading Between the Crimes

July 12, 2021
Young’s beguiling sequel to 2020’s On Borrowed Crime finds Lyla Moody, who works as a receptionist and PI-in-training at her uncle’s detective agency, and other members of the Jane Doe Book Club in Sweet Mountain, Ga., gathering for their monthly meeting to discuss Agatha Christie’s Crooked House, about a poisoning murder in which suspicion falls on the victim’s much younger second wife. Not at the meeting is librarian Harper Richardson, who’s instead attending a black-tie charity party with her husband, Leonard, that Lyla’s parents are hosting at their house that same evening. After the meeting, Lyla stops by her parents’ house, where she sees Leonard and Lyla quarrel. A short time later, Lyla discovers Leonard dead in the library. The police suspect Harper, who was Leonard’s much younger second wife, of poisoning Leonard, and in other respects the case resembles the one in Crooked House. In the efforts of the Jane Does to clear Harper, Lyla learns some disturbing secrets about her own family. Flawed, multilayered characters add depth to this cozy. Readers will eagerly await the next installment. Agent: Dawn Dowdle, Blue Ridge Agency.