What the Librarian Heard

Rating:
Summary: IT KEEPS YOU GUESSING UNTIL THE LAST EXQUISITE TWIST
Review: "Such is the narrowness of human focus that an actual murder in their community paled in comparison to the emotional impact of ...unfaithfulness." This is one of my favorite passages from Linda Bingham's most recent mystery novel,"What the Librarian Heard." Mastering and using all five of her senses in ways most of us cannot, she lovingly unfolds her plot. The style, form and flow of her writing are unprecedented. It would be difficult to pigeon-hole her style of writing. Although her plot is character driven, the dialogue is genuine and impeccable.

Johns Valley, Oklahoma is the lush setting for this character cozy (if you dare attempt labeling) with its Kiamichi mountains "standing guard over their valley like a big-headed sphinx cradling the town with its paws, and tucked into a labyrinth of rich bottom land valleys."

Elinor Woodward and Dot Hardwick, the two spry librarians, will immediately endear themselves to readers with their keen curiosity, wit and kind wisdom that only come from being nearly seventy years old.

Rose and Horace Chandler, Dr. Charley, Leonard Tenkiller, Kate and Shelby Jacks, DeWayne Ratliff and Rusty the dog--are a terrific cast of secondary characters. Linda Bingham takes ordinary people and makes them extraordinary and compelling. She molds the mundane into the magnificent. As the story goes...a small town's library shares quarters with the police station, and the library patrons hear more than they should from time to time. When librarian, Elinor Woodward, hears a police dispatch about a string of violent murders she makes a connection between them and a lost child.

"Librarian" will entertain, yet force self-reflection. You will hold dearly onto each character in the book which will remind you of characters in your own life. Just when you think you have this lush mystery with a hook figured out--you don't. It twists and turns until the very last pages. It was such a pleasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: Great fun!
Review: I loved this little mystery! I am a Texan and a librarian, so I bought it for myself at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. I think we have found a new author for our library, we are ordering a couple of copies-my own copy is a keeper! I can usually guess the "murderer" before the end-but this one had me fooled. It is too bad it takes you 5 weeks to order it-this gal is great fun!

Rating:
Summary: A Page Turner Beautifully Written
Review: When the town doctor in tiny Johns Valley, Oklahoma is found strangled to death with his own stethoscope, library volunteer and former schoolteacher Elinor Woodward sets out to crack the case. Life in a small town tends to afford one greater access to major local events, after all, especially if one is a respected former high school English teacher whose ex-students include the police chief, the dispatcher, and basically every other player in the unfolding drama. Lucky for Elinor, the library is also located in the same building as the police station, granting her a unique window into the on-going investigation.

With an adroit insightfulness into the human condition that takes the reader aback more than a few times, author Linda S. Bingham offers up a panoply of suspects, each more interesting and compelling in their complexity than the last. She teases you with them shamelessly, no doubt taking great personal pleasure as you erroneously think you've finally got the twists and turns figured out, and then realize that you don't at all, and will in fact do nothing else in your life until the last page of this delightful mystery is read.

But "Dr. Charley" is not the last victim. A pattern of violence emerges, albeit one that makes little sense to the authorities, who are, of course, always a couple of steps behind Elinor. She is forced to set out to solve the crimes herself, becoming a potential target in the process. Naturally, each new discovery, each nuance, brings the killer a little bit closer to Elinor's own backyard.

And just wait until you learn What the Librarian Heard!

Bingham sprinkles in a bit of intrigue and betrayal to keep the pace moving nicely. By the time she gets to the ending, you are hungry for it, but at the same time decidedly morose that the book is done. Her personal writing style is replete with examples of a unique rustic charm that is appropriate to the characters and plot, but never tiresome. For it is so obvious that she is first and foremost a writer, in the purest sense of the craft. It's a rare joy to read an exceptionally good yarn that is also just so very well written.

It's beyond me why mystery readers would ever try and satisfy themselves with [other author]when they could instead feast on Linda S. Bingham.