I found this softcover in the Little Free Library on Saville St. in Cambridge, while dropping off some books of my own. It's set in and around the London Library, and I enjoyed reading about the actual library's origins and procedures - but I did find the mysterious-poisonings aspect of the plot a bit strained. (Then again, by the time the solution turns up, it makes a weird kind of sense...) Plenty of red herrings, and some nice toggling between "arsenic as 19th-century poison-of-choice" and the all-too-real problems of well-water in parts of India that's contaminated by natural layers of arsenic. There's a dandy subplot involving a rare book with a potentially scandalous passage. [I did get irked by the senior detective's woman friend, who had a regrettable tendency to insert herself into the case without letting anyone know what she was doing - a classic example of the 'Have You Told Anyone Else' trope. Brock doesn't give her nearly as much grief for this as I think she deserved, but there are mitigating circumstances...]

I donated this book to the ongoing book sale rack inside the library. [They sell donated books for low prices, with the proceeds going to benefit library programs.] Hope the buyer enjoys the book!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

*** Released for the 2018 D for December release challenge. ***