Digital Shadows. The Moonridge Library Mysteries, #5

When Moonridge College's IT director is found dead in the server room during a campus-wide power outage, Diana discovers that some secrets are deadlier in digital form. Spring semester brings exciting new digital initiatives to Moonridge College, including a major database upgrade that promises to modernize the library's archives. But when IT director Kevin Ashbrook is found electrocuted in the server room after working late on a mysterious "data recovery project, " librarian Diana Foster realizes that someone was willing to kill to keep digital secrets buried. Kevin had been systematically investigating archived email systems and deleted institutional records, uncovering a web of financial fraud that reached into multiple departments.
His comprehensive digital forensics work threatened to expose cryptocurrency mining operations, systematic suppression of student safety complaints, and predatory lending schemes that exploited vulnerable students. Working with Detective Scott Erickson and research assistant Emma Fielding, Diana must expand her investigative skills into digital forensics while navigating the dangerous intersection of technology and traditional academic fraud.
When the killer uses sophisticated electrical sabotage to destroy evidence and create campus-wide chaos, Diana discovers that the murder required not only technical expertise but intimate knowledge of Kevin's work schedule and the college's digital infrastructure. As suspects emerge from the college community-including a computer science professor running an unauthorized cryptocurrency operation, a communications director systematically suppressing negative information, and a financial aid administrator connected to predatory lenders-Diana realizes that Kevin's investigation had uncovered institutional corruption that threatened multiple careers and lives. But when Diana discovers that the electrical modifications used to kill Kevin were planned months in advance, she must confront the chilling reality that someone had been preparing to eliminate any threat to their digital crimes long before Kevin became a specific problem. The fifth installment in the beloved Moonridge Library Mysteries proves that in the digital age, information itself can be a weapon, and the most dangerous criminals are often those who understand that technology can make murder look like an accident.