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A 42nd Street Library Mystery
by Con Lehane
The second in Con Lehane's 42nd Street Library mystery series, Murder in the Manuscript Room is a smart, compelling mystery in which the characters themselves are at least as interesting as the striking sleuthing.
When a murder desecrates the somber, book-lined halls of New York City's iconic 42nd Street Library, Raymond Ambler, the library's curator of crime fiction, has a personal interest in solving the crime. His quest to solve the murder is complicated by personal entanglements involving his friend - or perhaps more-than-friend - Adele Morgan. Not only does Adele's relationship with the young woman staffer who was murdered get in the way of Ambler's investigation, more disturbing for him is Adele's growing interest in a darkly handsome Islamic scholar.
Soon the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department takes over the case from NYPD homicide detective Mike Cosgrove, Ambler's friend and sometimes partner-in-crime solving. Ambler suspects that the murder of the young woman, who'd been working at the library under an assumed name and the curious intervention of NYPD's intelligence division are connected. The trail of intrigue leads to a seemingly unrelated murder in an upstate prison and a long ago murder of a trade union reformer.
No one else sees the connections Ambler is sure are there - not an unusual state of affairs for Ambler. But with the city's law enforcement establishment determined to stop his investigation, the inquisitive and intrepid librarian faces challenges that may put his very life at risk.
"Intricate... Lehane provides food for thought by comparing past FBI transgressions with present-day Homeland Security activities." - Publishers Weekly
"More ambitious and more muddled than the series debut, this sequel depends less on evoking a sense of its iconic nexus and more on making you look behind you when you're not asking the leads, 'You thought about looking for a less dangerous job than being a librarian?'" - Kirkus
"Not to be missed." - Megan Abbott
"A story utterly relevant to the real-life horror story unfolding in America's immigration politics." - Sara Paretsky
"Con Lehane's Murder in the Manuscript Room caught my attention because not only does its crime take place in a great library, its detective is also a believable librarian." - Thomas Mann, author of The Oxford Guide to Library Research
This information about Murder in the Manuscript Room was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Norman J. Faria
Con Lehane is a mystery writer, living in Washington, DC. He is the author of The Red Scare Murders (Soho Press, 2025), as well as the 42nd Street Library mysteries, featuring Raymond Ambler, curator of the library's (fictional) crime fiction collection. He's also the author of three mysteries featuring New York City bartender Brian McNulty, and has published short stories in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
Over the years, he has been a college professor, union organizer and labor journalist, and has tended bar at two-dozen or so drinking establishments. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction writing from Columbia University School of the Arts and teaches writing at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you liked Murder in the Manuscript Room, try these:
by Peter Swanson
Published 2021
From the hugely talented author of Before She Knew Him comes a chilling tale of psychological suspense and an homage to the thriller genre tailor-made for fans: the story of a bookseller who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation because a very clever killer has started using his list of fiction's most ingenious murders.
Murder at the 42nd Street Library
by Con Lehane
Published 2016
Murder at the 42nd Street Library opens with a murder in a second floor office of the iconic, beaux-arts flagship of the New York Public Library. Ray Ambler, the curator of the library's crime fiction collection, joins forces with NYPD homicide detective Mike Cosgrove in hopes of bringing a murderer to justice.
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