Book Review: Fundraising for the Dead by Sheila Connolly

At The Society for the Preservation of Pennsylvania Antiques, fundraiser Eleanor "Nell" Pratt solicits donations--and sometimes solves crimes. When a collection of George Washington's letters is lost on the same day that an archivist is found dead, it seems strange that the Society president isn't pushing for an investigation. Nell goes digging herself, and soon uncovers a long, rich history of crime.

This was one of the "pocket books" paperbacks in my work's library book sale, and I read it at the reference desk and then put it back rather than buying it. lol  It was obviously the library/archives/museum element that drew me in, as I work in a library with archives. This was a very interesting, well-written mystery that really made the time fly at the reference desk.

Fundraising does not interest me as a profession, but Nell is also a former English major and therefore hangs out in the stacks and archives as much as she can. She knows a lot about the Society and how it works so she can write and speak knowledgeably about it, and this knowledge and her professional relationships with Society staff and donors puts her in the perfect position to investigate the mystery of the disappearing items. A middle-aged Society board member whose ancestors' archival collection is in the archives starts making noise about not being able to find some letters between George Washington and her ancestor. In order to soothe her, Nell visits the cataloger in charge of logging the archival collections into the computer system. He's a nerdy, shy, antisocial dude who wouldn't say boo to a goose, but he likes Nell. He tells her a lot of items have gone missing, and it's all valuable stuff. Connolly really nailed the whole "put it down somewhere it's not supposed to be and it's gone" aspect of archives and libraries; that is a real problem, and it makes the situation tricky since someone could have just misshelved the items and they don't want to raise a false alarm. Nell decides to deal with it after a big fundraising dinner the Society is throwing that evening. She goes to work the next morning and finds the cataloger dead. Nell goes to the Society's President, who she has been dating on the down-low, about the missing items and he gives her excuses and platitudes but does nothing. She and the legacy board member start to suspect the President, and launch an investigation of their own, alongside the board member's cousin who works in the FBI. All in all, a very absorbing story! 

This is the first book in the "Museum Mystery" series, of which there are several. Sheila Connolly has written lots of different mystery series, and judging by this book, she's good at them. I'd be down to read the rest, but who knows when, as I have tons of my own books to read. I'm not sure whether this counts as a cozy mystery, as there isn't much coziness, but it's not gritty or anything either. The setting is cozy mystery-friendly/adjacent. Anyway, I definitely recommend this book and series. 

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: April 27
From: the library
Status: returned to the library

See my aesthetics moodboard for this series

Representation: middle-aged characters (40s-60s), which seems more common in mysteries series than other genres, but idk if that counts. Also female character-heavy. 1 Black very minor female character

Cover notes: I like the look and vibe. It's very library-y. It is not, however, accurate to the murder in the book.

Trigger warnings: murder, death, dead bodies, blood, attempted murder, a person in locked in a basement wine cellar and left to die by suffocation (they are found in time), a character seduces others to get information out of them without their knowledge and then dumps them, characters bug someone and listen in illegally and without their knowledge or consent, gun mentions, police and FBI, theft of historical archival items, selling aforementioned on the black market