NO PAW TO STAND ON

A Michigan librarian finds the perfect distraction from planning her nuptials: researching possible motives and methods for a poisoning at her friend’s restaurant.

Minnie Hamilton is in the thick of it. After trying in vain to convince her aunt to plan her wedding to longtime love Rafe Niswander, she’s reluctantly taken charge of the details for the September ceremony. Now that summer is here, the date’s getting too close for comfort, even though Rafe is a perfect match whose patience as a middle school principal makes him endlessly tolerant of the trouble Minnie keeps getting herself into. It’s just that the details of a wedding aren’t as much fun as those of the numerous investigations Minnie has wrapped herself up in. But many decisions seem set in stone, with food provided by Minnie’s best friend Kristen Jurek’s restaurant, Three Seasons, and driven to the venue, the Chilson District Library’s community room, in Minnie’s bookmobile. It all seems perfect until the officiant drops out. As Minnie frets over this, she gets a series of calls and texts from Kristen, culminating in a dire “CALL ME NOW!!!” Worried that something might be wrong with Kristen’s babies, Minnie drops everything to check on her friend and is shocked to learn that eight people got sick after eating at Three Seasons, and two of them are in the hospital. Minnie knows she has to tell all this ASAP to her friend Ash Wolverson, a Tonedagana County deputy, but she thinks she may be the best person to do on-the-ground research. While Minnie and longtime companion cat Eddie search for the poisoner, Kristen seems to spin out, and Minnie wonders if there’s something more underlying her friend’s moodiness.

Heavy on background chatter, with a low-stakes mystery upstaged by friendship tremors.