Requiem for a Mouse: 10/25/24

Requiem for a Mouse by Miranda James and Erin Bennett (Narrator) (2024) is the sixteenth book in the Cat in the Stacks mystery series. Charlie Harris is distracted by the hit and run murder of his antisocial part time library worker, Tara Martin. Before he can even begin to look for motives he has to figure out who she really was and who her next of kin are, if he can.

Charlie and the other regular characters really put me off early on in this book. Tara Martin, as she's introduced in the book for her few short chapters where she's actually alive, is quiet, socially awkward, and prone to some self destructive behaviors. Her outsider status is framed against "Southern propriety" bringing out the worst in passive aggressive and micro-aggressions I've seen from Charlie et al.

Although explanations for her behavior aren't ever satisfactorily given, Tara comes off as autistic and terrified. She's masking to the point of breaking. Her death, too, is treated as a learning experience for Charlie et al and I hate the plot device of the marginalized person being a martyr to teach the privileged main characters and ultimately the reader an important life lesson.

The mystery itself hinges on Tara hiding clues in places that no one would think to look. These involve squirreling things away at her places of work (the rare book archive as well as an off site catering job). These scenes of discovery by Charlie, especially in the rare book room, reminded me a bit of the climax of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) where the boys just have to promise to set the stuff out they need in the future (thanks to time travel) so that they can have them now when they need them. Charlie just needs to ask for a clue to manifest one!

Three stars

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