Binding Agreement. The Moonridge Library Mysteries, #7

When Moonridge College's beloved bookstore manager is found dead in the rare book storage room, Diana discovers that greed and desperation can turn deadly. March brings spring energy and St. Patrick's Day festivities to Moonridge College, but the seasonal optimism turns deadly when bookstore manager Dorothy "Dot" Brennan is found dead in the basement storage room. What appears to be an accident with falling shelves reveals itself as murder when coroner Helen Roberts discovers blunt force trauma from a deliberate assault. Dot had recently inherited a valuable rare book collection from her late aunt and planned to donate it to the college library, creating a lasting educational legacy.
But her generous decision put her in conflict with desperate family members who needed the money and business associates who saw profit opportunities-creating a web of financial motives that would ultimately cost Dot her life. Working with Detective Scott Erickson and research assistant Emma Fielding, Diana must navigate inheritance disputes and mounting desperation to discover who killed her friend.
When the investigation reveals planted evidence, false confessions, and an elaborate scheme to frame innocent suspects, Diana realizes someone orchestrated this murder with chilling calculation-someone who understood both the book trade and the desperate circumstances of everyone involved. As suspects emerge from the college and local community-including Dot's financially struggling nephew, her recently divorced sister, and a desperate book dealer facing bankruptcy-Diana must determine who was willing to kill over valuable first editions and whether the motive was greed, desperation, or something even more twisted. The seventh installment in the beloved Moonridge Library Mysteries proves that even in places dedicated to learning and preservation, the most dangerous people are sometimes those who appear most harmless, and that the line between passion and obsession can be fatally thin.