That Night in the Library: A Novel by Eva Jurczyk

The university has had a rare books library for quite a long time, but now it has a crime scene.

The night before, seven (mostly) graduate students at the university gathered one last rite of passage--a locked in night at the library with drugs, rituals, and the promise of freeing them from fear of death. With some deft deception, calling in of favors, and a touch of luck, the seven manage to evade the final lockup and find themselves in the lowest level of the library together, but otherwise alone.

Then the lights go out.

And someone is dead.

Are the remaining six sure that they're alone? Or is someone--or something--else lying in wait?

As the drugs begin to kick in, so does the paranoia, but, then again, so does the body count. As the hours creep by, will it become a kill or be killed world or can the survivors band together in the darkness?

That Night in the Library: A Novel by Eva Jurczyk starts with a perfect setting: mysterious books, locked doors, and seven nearly friends wanting one memorable night before they leave this shroud of their academic lives for the harsher outside world. Jumping between perspectives of the characters helps them all feel real and helps the reader keep guessing who has done what and why.

Discussing the ending is the part I have been wrestling with. While it did feel logical and Jurczyk dropped clear hints (that I noticed when reflecting on the earlier portions of the novel), it did not feel wholly satisfying. Perhaps because, while the whodunnits are all clear in the end, how the survivors will grapple with that knowledge is unspoken.

I do want to give Jurczyk credit for creating a grounded ending, but somehow that anchor in reality felt like disservice to the story that I had read thus far.

All of that said, That Night in the Library provided some great twists and, for most of the novel, had my mind racing with the possibilities of what was unfolding. The ending, while not ultimately what I'd felt I was being led to, did feel entirely plausible--which is often a rarity for this kind of thriller.

That Night in the Library: A Novel by Eva Jurczyk, Poisoned Pen Press