Code Grey: A feline-filled academic mystery by Clea Simon

She's stayed behind at the college to work on her dissertation.  She needs to get if finished up and she doesn't mind working on it.  It's a bit lonely with everyone gone, but that gives her the precious time to work on it.  Or it would if she didn't get caught up in a missing book mystery.

Severn House and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published August 1st, so make a note your TBR list.

Dulcie gets the feeling someone is watching her but she doesn't worry about it much.  She has a ghostly cat friend that warns her about danger.  No one is going to sneak up on her.

When she works late one day and it's raining, she decides to head into the library to warm up and dry off a bit before heading home.  She runs into the man on campus who never finished his dissertation.  She considers him a bad example of what can happen to you if you don't.  She's also nice to him even if he doesn't make sense and seems a bit out of it.  She believes he's harmless.

Finding out that he was found in the construction zone with a stolen book on him doesn't daunt her judgement.  She's sure he's innocent.  But no one else is.

As she tries to understand just what it is he had in his possession and starts asking questions about the past, she's getting in deeper than she needs to be in a police investigation.  Her boyfriend is trying to get her to focus on her work and leave the investigation alone.  It's to no avail.  Even the Inspector trying to get her out of the case doesn't work.  And what she finds has been going on a long time and is valuable enough to kill her to keep it.

This has a lot about rare books and gets a bit bogged down once in a while for the casual reader.  The mystery is good and the relationships of the people involved kept my attention.  Like usual, greed got involved long ago and the abuse of books kept going.  Some people will do anything for money.  It was nice to see justice come around.