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THE POISON PEN by Paige Shelton Minotaur, April 2024 304 pages $27.00 ISBN: 1250890608 Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Opening a new Paige Shelton book is like reconnecting with friends, or meeting new friends if this is a reader's first Scottish Bookshop Mystery. This 9th in the series can be read either way – as a series continuation or as a standalone. As always, Delaney and her coworkers from The Cracked Spine bookshop are the kind of warm, thoughtful people anyone would be happy to have as friends. This time around, her retired taxi-driving friend, Elias, and her doting husband, Tom, play active roles in the investigation. Rosa, one of Delaney's bookstore colleagues, and Edwin, the owner of the bookstore, also step out from their usual behind-the-scenes position and into the limelight.

As Delaney, a restorer and cataloger of the vast collection of objects Edwin has amassed over the years, takes on the task of identifying a potentially historically valuable sword, she enters the strange world of Jolie Lannister. Jolie is a hoarder, whose mansion is filled with piles of everything imaginable. She also has a past with Edwin and has made a name for herself by making a claim to the throne. Shelton imbues Delaney with a sense of humor as Delaney attempts to avoid saying the word "hoarder" and as she works through the ties between the various players in the mystery of the sword's origin and significance. Involved, in addition to Jolie and Edwin, are a lawyer, a groundskeeper, a museum director, an auctioneer, and the police. There is some buffoonery, and a bit of keystone cop running about, but overall the pieces of the puzzle end up fitting together and the resolution to the mystery is satisfying.

Although there is not a great deal of depth to the characters, Delaney and her cohorts are well enough and sympathetically drawn so that we care about them as much as they care about each other (which is quite a bit). The overall sense of kindness in this book is so positive and upbeat that it trumps any lack in nuance. The Edinburgh setting is well incorporated into the story and provides character and interest. The bookstore, and books in general, take a backseat in this book, and Delaney ruminates several times about starting a private investigation team with Elias and Tom, so it will be interesting to see if Shelton takes the series in that direction or if this is just a one-off.

All in all, THE POISON PEN was a very pleasant diversion that has me looking forward to the 10th in the series.

§ § Sharon Mensing, retired educational leader, lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors in Arizona.