Charlie Harris is a librarian and archivist at Athena College in the small town of Athena, Mississippi. After his wife’s death, he settled into a quiet routine of cataloging rare books and caring for his oversized Maine Coon cat Diesel. That routine does not last long in any given book. Bodies keep turning up in and around Athena, and Charlie keeps finding himself involved.
Charlie is polite, well-read, and a little old-fashioned. He is the kind of person who brings casseroles to grieving neighbors and knows the history of every family in town. These qualities make him an effective amateur detective because people talk to him. His work in the library also gives him access to records and connections that the police do not always have. Diesel, his Maine Coon cat, accompanies him nearly everywhere on a leash and has become a beloved fixture at the college.
The series, written by Miranda James, puts Charlie in the middle of murders that are personal, tangled up in small-town grudges and old secrets. He is not an action hero. He is a mild-mannered librarian with a big cat and a habit of asking one too many questions.
Reading Order
See the complete Cat in the Stacks Mysteries reading order for all books in the series.