Paige Shelton’s Scottish Bookshop Mystery series has mesmerized me since the first chapter of book one.  There is no other cozy series like it.  I highly recommend the first two books, THE CRACKED SPINE and OF BOOKS AND BAGPIPES.  It’s best to read them in order to understand how the story begins; however, each book can stand alone.  Happy Cozy Reading! 📚 😊


LOST BOOKS AND OLD BONES by Paige Shelton
(A Scottish Bookshop Mystery #3)
Release Date: April 3, 2018
Minotaur Books

5 Star Review by Chatting About Cozies (Linda Langford)

Since feisty Delaney Nichols moved from Kansas to Scotland, her life has been filled with old books and bookish treasures; intrigue and danger. She’s found true love with pub owner Tom, and made great friends with her landlords, Elias and Aggie, and her co-workers, Rosie and Hamlet. Delaney is still carefully feeling her way around her mysterious and wealthy employer, Edwin MacAlister.

The morning after Delaney has drinks with some new friends who are medical students at the University of Edinburgh—Sophie, Rena, and their friend, Mallory—The Cracked Spine employees are horrified to find a dead body in the alley behind the shop. Worrisomely, it’s Mallory.

As history mingles into current events; the author leads readers through a grisly past filled with tales of witches, murderers, and thieves. The med students are seemingly afraid of one particular professor, a Dr. Eban, who has a fascination with a missing ex-professor’s (Dr. Robert Knox) methods of illegally acquiring corpses for teaching purposes in anatomy classes. Could Dr. Eban be a killer? Joshua, Delaney’s geeky contact at the museum, and Artair, the librarian who’s also Tom’s father, lend their expertise in researching answers.

Just as the first two stories in the Scottish Bookshop series were for me; this third story is mesmerizing. Clues are abundant, yet I couldn’t quite put my finger on the right answer, however, when the plot pieces together at the end, I marveled at Ms. Shelton’s ability to pen such a complex manuscript. I enjoyed every page of “Lost Books and Old Bones,” and highly recommend this series beginning with book one.

I read and reviewed an ARC provided by the author and Minotaur Books.