⭐️⭐️ I’ll admit it—if a book involves a library, I’m probably going to read it. So Eva Jurczyk’s The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections had me from the title alone. It’s set in a dusty, prestigious university library where a rare manuscript disappears, and a quiet, second-in-command librarian named Liesl suddenly finds herself in charge. The mystery is a good one. The missing books aren’t just generic plot devices—they’re authentic historical works, and Jurczyk (a librarian at the University of Toronto herself) clearly knows the world she’s writing about. That behind-the-scenes look at special collections was easily my favorite part. Where it fell short for me was tone and cohesion. […]