A Bookstore Cold Case in Book High And Low

Garnet Stone wants a tidier workplace in Jessica Brimer's Book High And Low. Bind Me Again, an East Tennessee used bookstore, has reopened after a remodel, but her boss Jane and the two resident cats make order elusive. Then a trade-in delivery brings a problem that decluttering cannot solve.

A document hidden among the books

Freelance editor Jacob Rome arrives with books containing a death certificate. The person named in the document has been missing for twenty years. That discovery gives Garnet and Jane a question about the past before a new crime makes the situation more urgent.

Jacob is murdered behind the bookstore. His recent arrival in Sevier Oak and his difficulties with locals create several possible directions for inquiry, while the document suggests that the case may require looking much further back.

Curiosity and the shop's reputation

Garnet and Jane investigate partly to protect the bookstore's name. Their business has become associated with both the hidden certificate and the killing, making the search personal as well as intriguing.

Books move between owners, and a document left inside one can survive long after its original context has disappeared. The death certificate puts that possibility at the center of Garnet and Jane's daily workplace. Jacob's murder makes identifying its significance urgent, linking an old missing person with a new death behind the shop.