By day, Brooklyn Wainwright restores old books — but in her off hours, she keeps having to clear herself of murder. Author Kate Carlisle follows up Brooklyn’s crime-solving debut, Homicide in Hardcover, with If Books Could Kill, a frothy mystery novel that’s elevated by an engaging cast of characters and complex narration from Eileen Stevens.

After solving the mystery behind the death of her mentor in Homicide in Hardcover, Brooklyn travels to Scotland for a book fair that sounds run-of-the-mill: rare books for sale, breakout sessions on bookbinding, Q&As on forgeries. But then she runs into an old boyfriend, Kyle, who asks her to verify the authenticity of an antique book that reveals long-held secrets of the royal family — and when Kyle turns up dead a few hours later, Brooklyn is once again the prime suspect. The plot is nothing groundbreaking but — though the “who” in whodunit isn’t a complete surprise — Carlisle includes some nice twists, and she makes Brooklyn’s dull-sounding job a vibrant, lively component of the story.