Murder Past Due by Miranda James (2010) Berkley

The first of the Cat in the Stacks cozy mystery series.  The amateur sleuth is a widowed library archivist at a Mississippi college.  He has a Main Coon cat that is very people friendly and boarder who is going to college.  Then there is the guy no one liked in high school or college or since who has gone on to be a famous best-selling thriller writer who is the biological father of the boarder, the boarder’s mother, a half-brother that very few people knew about, the chief librarian, whose ex-wife married the writer, the chief librarian’s assistant also known has the gossip clearing house for the town, and someone who has a big secret related to the writer.  There is also the archivist’s housekeeper and her daughter who is the interim chief of detectives in the sheriff’s office who wants to find the murderer – of the writer.