The crime-solving doyenne of the Dewey Decimal System, Miss Zukas is back in circulation!

Librarian extraordinaire Miss Wilhelmina "Helma" Zukas wakes up on the morning of her forty-second birthday in the throes of more than one midlife crisis. Her championing a collection of local authors' works ignites a dangerous firestorm of jealousy and anger in tiny Bellehaven. She's blackmailed by her conniving boss, library director May Apple Moon, into attending group counseling sessions -- and two of the participants turn up dead. An obnoxiously bubbly new librarian is turning the head of Helma's longtime admirer, Police Chief Wayne Gallant. And worst of all, her uncuddly feline companion, Boy Cat Zukas, disappears.

Though she's been expressly forbidden to investigate (by the scheming Ms. Moon), it's Helma's nature to delve and research, and she figures there's nothing else now that she can lose. But too much nosing around in this case, and she's not going to make it to forty-three!

• modern mysteries