Those Conventional Librarians--Miranda James

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm going to start with a quote, on this day when I feel particularly in need of a bit of comfort--from Marilyn Stasio's review in the Crime Column of the New York Times, on the new Cat in the Stacks mystery by Miranda James (aka my friend Dean.)

"Let us now praise the cozy mystery, so comforting on dark days, so warming on chilly nights--the literary equivalent of a cat. 12 ANGRY LIBRARIANS...checks a lot of essential boxes."

What better introduction to this series, if you haven't been fortunate enough to read it!
 
The books feature widowed librarian Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat, Diesel, and are set in a small collegiate town in Mississippi. Here's a peek at Twelve Angry Librarians:
 

Charlie is stressed out. The Southern Academic Libraries Association is holding this year’s annual meeting at Athena College. Since Charlie is the interim library director, he must deliver the welcome speech to all the visiting librarians. And as if that weren’t bad enough, the keynote address will be delivered by Charlie’s old nemesis from library school.

It’s been thirty years since Charlie has seen Gavin Fong, and he’s still an insufferable know-it-all capable of getting under everyone’s skin. In his keynote, Gavin puts forth a most unpopular opinion: that degreed librarians will be obsolete in the academic libraries of the future. So when Gavin drops dead, no one seems too upset…

But Charlie, who was seen having a heated argument with Gavin the day before, has jumped to the top of the suspect list. Now Charlie and Diesel must check out every clue to refine their search for the real killer among them before the next book Charlie reads comes from a prison library…

And here's Dean--er, Miranda--to set us straight on libraries.

 

Libraries come in assorted “flavors” – there are public libraries, government libraries, corporate libraries, law libraries, music libraries, art libraries, medical libraries, as well as various other kinds of libraries. Each type of library has its particular needs that make it distinctive from the other kinds of library. Their collections can be vastly different. For example, a medical library collection and a public library collection don’t have much in common, because they serve different communities.

In my “Cat in the Stacks” series I write about two kinds of library, the public library in Athena, Mississippi, and the library at Athena College. The latter is considered an academic library. An academic library serves the needs of its parent institution, and there are thousands of academic libraries and academic libraries in the United States. There are also professional associations for the different types of libraries, and these association meet, usually on an annual basis.

For the latest book, I thought it would be fun to write a mystery set at an academic library conference, so I made up an association – the Southern Academic Libraries Association, or SALA. Athena College is the host library, and since Charlie is serving as interim director of the library, he will have to play a role in the meeting. Whether he really wants to is another matter.

At these meetings librarians do presentations, and there are usually a couple, if not more, keynote addresses. What if, I thought, someone is murdered during one of these keynotes? What if it’s the person speaking who is murdered? And what if the speaker just happens to be someone that Charlie dislikes?

Those were the seeds of the plot of Twelve Angry Librarians. I decided that some of the important characters would be fellow students from Charlie’s days in graduate school in Texas twenty-five years ago. Readers get a glimpse into Charlie’s history in this book, and they also see a side of his personality that doesn’t surface often. That’s part of the fun of writing a series, actually. Exploring a character’s history and aspects of his personality that slowly emerge as the series progresses.

Now, before anyone gets worried, I’ve been to numerous professional library association meetings, and thus far no one has been murdered. But you never know . . . .

DEBS: And here's more about Dean, who will be checking in to chat with us today!

 
Miranda James is the pseudonym of Dean James, a seventh-generation Mississippian recently returned home after over thirty years in Texas. A mystery fan since the age of ten, he wrote his first novel at the ripe old age of twelve. The only copy of The Mystery of the Willow Key vanished years ago, but since it was highly derivative of the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery series, that’s probably a good thing.

DEBS: Now, who's contemplated murder at a professional conference? Come on, readers, 'fess up!!