Hello everyone! I’m Thea Olson. Dru asked me to stop by and let you know what’s going on in Why, North Dakota. I moved back earlier this year from Minneapolis, and it’s been so good being back home with my family. I’ve even started my own consulting business and found time to volunteer at our local library.

Actually, volunteering at the library was pretty much expected. My family built the library way back when, and my grandmother used to be the library director. I practically grew up in the library, and I always have my nose in a book.

Grandma retired recently, and the board of trustees hired a guy from Florida named Hudson Carter to take over the job. When I picked Hudson up at the airport, he told me how excited he was to move to North Dakota and get a fresh start. Little did he know his fresh start was going to involve finding a dead body in the library. Poor guy. Not only does he have a tragic past, his move to North Dakota meant getting caught up in a murder investigation.

My brother, Leif, was recently appointed as acting chief of police, but he was in over his head when the dead body was found. Leif can handle dishing out parking tickets and dealing with petty crime, but solving a murder . . . well, let’s just say that he needed all the help he could get. (By the way, don’t tell Leif I said that. It’ll just be one more thing for us to squabble about.)

Anyway, my grandmother, Hudson, and I joined forces to nab the killer. We joked about how we’re the ‘Three Investigators,’ but the secrets we uncovered were nothing to laugh about. I was beginning to think we would never discover the truth when a snarky chameleon mysteriously appeared in the library and gave me cryptic clues. Gosh, that reptile is obnoxious, but without his help, I’m not sure we would have figured out whodunit.

Now that we’ve solved the case, I wonder what the future holds. Hopefully, it involves spending more time with Hudson. He’s become a good friend . . . maybe someday it’ll be more than that. Regardless of what happens between us, fingers crossed, I hope we don’t find any more dead bodies.

Murder at the Library, A North Dakota Library Mystery Book #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: August 2023
Format: Digital
Purchase Link

Books can be deadly when in the wrong hands.

When Thea Olson agreed to volunteer at her local library, she anticipated shelving books, not discovering a dead body in the stacks.

Fearing the police chief won’t get to the bottom of the case, Thea investigates the murder with the help of her grandmother and the handsome new library director.

In between dealing with a demanding buffalo, library board politics, and running her own consulting business, Thea tries to discover who the killer is.

But when a mysterious chameleon turns up in the library and uncovers an important clue, Thea realizes she may be in over her head. Can she nab the murderer before someone else ends up dead?

About the author
Ellen Jacobson is a chocolate obsessed cat lover who writes cozy mysteries and romantic comedies. After working in Scotland and New Zealand for several years, she returned to the States, lived aboard a sailboat, traveled around in a tiny camper, and is now settled in a small town in northern Oregon with her husband and an imaginary cat named Simon.

Find out more at ellenjacobsonauthor.com and sign up for her newsletter HERE.

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