The Library After Dark by Ande Pliego

Timy reviews The Library After Dark, a standalone mystery novel by Ande Pliego. Out on May 14, 2026!

An eARC was received by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

About the Book
The Sound of Madness
Book Blurb
Review
Our Judgement

Possible fit for The Sound of Madness Reading Challenge 2026 prompts:

Joker prompt that goes with anything: Freefall

Discover this brand new, puzzle-box murder mystery that’s guaranteed to keep you hooked until the very last page… perfect for fans of Sarah Pearse and Eight Detectives.

‘Irresistible – bright, sharp and rife with danger.’ A.J. FINN

‘Devilishly clever and gripping right until the end.’ IAN MOORE

In the centre of New York stands the city’s most notorious library.

It has a history of mysterious disappearances and freak accidents. But tonight, it opens its doors to welcome a group of strangers for an exclusive after-hours tour.

The famous author. The journalist. The professor. The bookseller. The architect.

They are here to see a legendary book – one of the most valuable in the world. But each visitor also has other, more sinister reasons for being in the library after dark.

As the tour takes them deeper into the building, one of the guests meets a gruesome, inexplicable end – and the others realise they are living on borrowed time.

The search for the murderer forces them to confront awful truths about themselves and decide which secrets are worth dying – or killing – to keep.

We all know murder mysteries are totally my jam. And also, as a blogger/bookworm I’m contractually obliged to get my interest piqued by even the mention of a library in a book. Like, come on. So naturally, when my eyes fell on The Library After Dark on NetGalley, I had to request it. I know nothing about the author or their previous work, so I went in totally blind. Meaning I had no expectations at all, which is usually a good thing (for me). Honestly, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book as I’m starting to write this review, but hopefully things will get clearer by the end. Which is to say, I walked away with mixed feelings.

The very coveted and often feared owner of the Deadalus Library is dead. And after a long time, the most prized item, The Tales of Hearth, that inspired many well known children’s stories and their numerous retellings will be displayed to the public. A group of mismatched people have the opportunity to have a tour and a view of the book before anyone else. The base concept of The Library After Dark is great. Take a group of diverse(ish) characters, close them in a gothic, creepy library and start killing them off one by one. Needless to say, everyone has an agenda of their own, just to make things confusing.

I’m not a big fan of multiple POVs in general, and personally, I don’t think it worked all that well here, either. Jasper and Aria can be said are the main characters, but everyone else gets a few chapters of their own. Problem is, they are all written in first person (which is fine), and it’s really hard to put them apart. I mean, I could mostly tell whose POV we are in based on their interactions with people, but it didn’t feel like they had distinct voices. Most of the characters were pretty bland, and I found it hard to connect with any of them. That’s a very big pet peeve of mine – because there has to be at least one character I can root for, be it a good guy or a bad guy. Whatever, point is, make me feel something. None of these characters did, and some of them did pretty horrible things. A lot of them on the page too, so if you are not a fan of bloody books, you probably want to skip this one.

In this case, I think the “more is less” rule would have worked a lot better. At the beginning, I was intrigued, and I kept picking the book up, because I was curious how things would play out. But as more characters got their POVs and the revelations kept coming thick and fast like a freight train, I kept losing interest. And was debating to DNF, but I’ve been toward the end and I still had a tiny sliver of curiosity left. I don’t regret finishing it, and I appreciate that every thread was tucked in. Yet, I left feeling underwhelmed. I wanted more about the characters, to get to know them better, to really get into their heads. For that, I think The Library After Dark needed fewer POV characters and twists. Don’t get me wrong, I like it when a mystery book keeps me in the dark and it’s hard to guess who is behind the events, but there is a difference between a few well placed gut punches and a flurry. What I’m trying to say is that this book needed a better balancing between character building and plot, because now the scale is tipping toward the latter.

The Library After Dark has some pretty solid ideas I liked – the supposedly haunted library, the mysterious murders of past and present, the different rooms and their themes (I totally would love to visit the library!), how all the characters are connected often without even knowing. The writing was solid too, and I think I probably will give a try to another Ande Pliego book in the future, because I can see a lot of potential here. Unfortunately, The Library After Dark died on the editing block. It was trying to dance on the edges of both mystery and horror, at the peril of the characters. Maybe it wanted to achieve too much. Toward the end it started to feel a lot longer than its 350 pages or so. A pity, because again, the bones were there. But as always, be your own judge.