The Cracked Spine

Scottish Bookshop Mystery, Book 1

By: Paige Shelton

Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie

In need of a good adventure, Delaney Nichols takes the leap and moves to Edinburgh, Scotland, to start a job at The Cracked Spine. She doesn't know much about what she's gotten herself into other than that the work sounds exciting and that her new boss, Edwin MacAlister, has given her the opportunity of a lifetime.

When she arrives, she meets her new Scottish family; also working at The Cracked Spine are Rosie, perpetually wrapped in scarves, who always has tiny dog Hector in tow; Hamlet, a 19-year-old thespian with a colored past and a bright future; and Edwin, who is just as enigmatic and mysterious as Delaney expected.

But before she can settle in to her new life, a precious artifact - a previously undiscovered first folio of Shakespeare's plays - goes missing, and Edwin's sister is murdered, seemingly in connection to the missing folio. Delaney decides to do some sleuthing of her own to find out just what the real story is behind the priceless folio and how it's connected to the tragic death - all without getting harmed herself.

©2016 Paige Shelton-Ferrell (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"As warm and inviting as a cup of tea and a serving of fresh-from-the-oven shortbread." (Ellery Adams, author of Writing All Wrongs)

Kept Me Guessing!

Wow! This book was a great start to a series! It actually kept me guessing until the very end. As an avid cozy mystery reader, that is hard to do. I really enjoyed the well developed story and the well developed characters. I especially loved all the accurate descriptions of Edinburgh! If you have never been, these are great descriptions of what it’s like with actual landmarks and street names. Looking forward to the next in the series!

Enjoyable

It’s a fun little mystery and the narrator was great - could switch between male and female voice and the Scottish accent was really good. I really enjoyed this book.

Fun novel!!

A great read with a gripping story, and a wonderful performance by the narrator. I can recommend this book for anyone and any age.

I couldn’t finish it.

I couldn’t finish it. I tried. It was simply boring. It couldn’t hold my attention.
The narrator did but across mostly monotone.

How an American instantly felt welcome in a foreign country

I like all the characters in this story. The narration was very good. Worth reading this mystery book.