Dutton, Charles J. Murder in a Library (New York: A.L. Burt, c1931) 302 p.

Ruby Merton, reference librarian at a large urban public library, is found murdered in her office. She is well known and not well liked: "No one had ever called the reference librarian good-looking; there were many who said she was just the opposite. Eccentric in everything she did, like many of her type, her clothes ran to vivid, extreme colors." (p. 9-10). "... the librarian was a stickler for formality. Perhaps her long years of service at a small salary had soured her, for there was no doubt her disposition was not of the best. Few were the people that would have come into her office uninvited." (p. 20). "She came from one of the old families of the city. In her childhood they had been wealthy, but the influence and money had vanished years ago. She had been a soured, neurotic old maid, whose tongue poured out irony and contempt." (p. 143).

A murder in a library causes some surprise: "Did you ever hear of a fool crime like this, in a library, a place filled with books, with nice young girls and cranky old maids? What under heavens is there in a library to bring crime?" (p. 107). The answer soon follows:

... the women in the libraries are nice women, as you say, and the building is very much a public place. They are dealing all the time with what we call the 'dear public,' and sometimes the public is not so nice. All day long they meet various types of people; some who are intelligent, and some--the majority--who are not. Nice people, as you say, but also neurotics, cranks, selfish people. It's not an easy task and often it does things to them."

"Does what?"

"I mean this. Many of the women in that building have been there for years. Their lives are cramped to the extent that they are a bit unnatural. As they grow older, like all people who have put away from them a home and children, they become a little self-centered. Once, I suppose, there were more jealousies and more neurotics in our public libraries than in any other place, unless in the churches...."

"... once libraries were run only by women and by women who were given the jobs because of two things--family or position. They must earn a living and it was thought anyone could hand out books. So the libraries were filled with narrow, repressed, neurotic women, whose outlook on life had become a bit warped and soured. You see, in that case, instead of saying nothing could happen in a library, you should have said, anything might happen." (p. 108-9).

The above remarks notwithstanding, the Head Librarian is a man, Mr. Henry Spicer, a well-liked and dedicated professional. About the library staff in general, however, we read, "as a rule librarians were not bookish people" (p. 180). "The library staff would know they were in the safe, but they would not be very much interested in the safe or its contents. When the days' work was over, books were the last thing they wished to see" (p. 232). The story involves stolen rare books.