Buried in a Book (A Novel Idea Mystery #1)

Author:  Lucy Arlington
Genre: Mystery

Hardcover (LP); Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9780425246191
Berkley Publishing
304 Pages
(Various) $7.19; $7.99
February 7, 2012

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After receiving her first pink slip at the age of forty-five, former newspaper journalist Lila Wilkins is desperate for work, even it means taking a pay cut.  After combing through the classifieds, Lila accepts an internship at A Novel Idea, a thriving literary agency in the utopian town of Inspiration Valley, North Carolina.

Lila can't imagine anything better than being paid to read, but with a crew of quirky coworkers and a sky-high stack of query letters, she doesn't exactly have time to discover the next great bestseller - especially when a penniless aspiring author drops dead in the agency's waiting room.

No one else seems too concerned about the man's demise, but when Lila uncovers a series of threatening letters, she's determined to uncover who killed the man's dreams of literary stardom...

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Lila Wilkins has lost her job at a newspaper and needs to find a new one fast.  She’s in luck when there’s an opening for an intern at a literary agency named A Novel Idea.  She’s going to need all the luck she can get when vagrant comes into the office and she’s told that he comes in daily, and has been doing so for awhile.  But when he comes in and doesn’t leave...because he’s dead...it changes the story.  Especially when it soon becomes apparent that he’s been murdered, but none of her coworkers seem to care.

On top of that, her seventeen-year-old son Trey has taken her car without permission and totaled it, along with ruining part of his college’s football field.  Now she has to figure out a way to get to work, and unfortunately, that way will be if she and Trey move in with her mother until she can sell her home and buy one in the town where she’ll be working.  At least it will be cheaper than taking the train every day.

But Lila is bothered by her co-workers’ coldness toward the death of Marlette and since the police have arson and another death to deal with (after all, he was only a vagrant) so she decides to find justice for the man herself.  But in doing so, will she find a murderer or will they find her?

I really wanted to like this book because it had a great premise - a woman who finds a career with a literary agency - but there was so much wrong with it that just didn’t make sense.  First, once the police knew it was a homicide, why didn’t they assign a homicide detective?  Officer Griffiths investigated the murder, which didn’t make sense, since street officers don’t do that kind of thing; and I’m guessing he was a street officer, because why would a homicide detective show up with an ambulance if they didn’t know it was a murder?

Secondly, why did her mother have such a strong accent and she didn’t?  You’d think she’d sound a little bit like the person who birthed her, but there wasn’t even a southern endearment out of her mouth (Not even one ‘sugar’ came forth).  That also seemed rather odd to me,  On top of this, Lila apologizes to the person who almost got her killed!  Lila said she was sorry when the person said Lila ruined their life!  What the...?  She should have told them “Are you kidding?  You nearly got me killed!”  How stupid is this woman?  I would have let them have it both barrels right there in the street!

But the third was the situation with her son Trey.  He’s seventeen, and she has no problem turning him loose with strangers (even if her mother knew them, she didn’t). She just allowed this teenager to go off and live in the woods - and she didn’t even wonder what his living arrangements would be.  She was never curious where he was living (in a cabin?  In the forest?) or where he was sleeping (perhaps with a rock for his head).  What kind of mother cares more about the death of a stranger than she does the welfare of her own son?  HE’S SEVENTEEN. If he liked Iris, then she should have told him he could date her on the weekends, but he needed to live with her.

In fact, at the beginning of the book she tells him he needs to get a summer job and help pay off the damage he caused and he balks at it; yet when he moves to the co-op, he decides he wants to work - but he’s not getting paid.  So basically this is another entitled kid who leaves his mother to clean up his messes.  If he was so mature, why didn’t he realize he needed to help his mom pay what he damaged?  That’s immature, and shows he should have been made to come home.

The book left the irresponsibility of Trey as being perfectly fine, the fact that there wasn’t a detective assigned to the case - and the cop shouldn’t have made a pass at her while she was involved in the investigation (which she was).  That also shows irresponsibility on the officer’s part.  These are difficult to get past when they could have been so easily remedied, and the reason why I couldn’t like it as well as I wanted to.  

https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Book-Novel-Idea-Mystery/dp/0425246191/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2396511047

More on Lucy Arlington's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/lucy-arlington/