“I’m sure you know that nobody comes here to browse.”

88. That Night in the Library – Eva Jurczyk

At first I wasn’t sure exactly what to think of this, and I will say I was concerned about the comparisons I saw to The Secret History, but I don’t think that lasts past the Greek ritual thing, which is actually a little thin and seemed more like a BS reason to have a sneaky party. The Secret History might have been more enjoyable to me if they were all just stuck in a library basement for a night and then it was over. This was much tighter and the character whose head we’re in the most often, Faye, was both an odd choice and more relatable to me than our conduit in The Secret History as well.

The characters for the most part are not likeable and they’re spending the evening stuck in a basement with rare books so they can do a ritual and essentially have a party, which makes me think somebody’s not thinking about the books needing to be safe from them in their drug induced ritualizing – but thankfully there were hints of thinking of the books unlike in The Day After Tomorrow when they burned rare books instead of literally anything else – furniture, more easily reacquired books, the magazine section, I mean, really… Faye, who apparently has made it all the way to university without a single hint of human connection (I mean, I like her dog connection story, Beans, but this just seemed a stretch and I say this as a solitary person), does care about the books and is capable enough to figure out which rare books would be more able to absorb more blood, even when maybe they shouldn’t be asked to do that.

They’re in the basement with a lack of options for cleaning up blood due to the poor planning/wishful thinking of Davey, who also thinks no one is going to find out he invited several people down there to stay the night and ritualize and hid things like a single ear of corn in a basket instead of paper towels or a first aid kit. And he thinks he’s going to get the salaried job.

I haven’t even covered the other unlikeable characters, including the first person to die and the source of the mystery, Kip. Kip’s death is a result of an absolutely brilliant killer and although I was on the fence for the vast majority of the book about whether or not I liked it, I love the ending resolution. Love it. I’m not going to spoil it, but I have experience with that situation (non-murdery, a warning) in my own library career and instructing student workers, and so to see that I was totally chuffed. And also the resolution managed to bring in very realistic police work, which was also very unexpected, even if they were a bit late.

 

Murderface and Mortemer know how thoroughly they would judge sneaky library party havers. Very thoroughly. No promotions for anyone.