This card is absolutely wild. It's incredibly efficient for the price, with the most easily searchable keyword in the game (Research Librarian, Whitton Greene), gives a +2 boost at level 0 on an item which is unconditional, and further boosts the most important resource in the game; card draw, all the while giving 4 uses for 3 money for a single hand slot. Fingerprint Kit exhausts and has 3 uses while only giving a +1 boost and costs 4 resources. Further, the uses are secrets, which, while this isn't a strong contender to boost the uses, the fact is you can very easily with Astounding Revelation or Eldritch Sophist, or Truth From Fiction. Did you need more handslots to hold it and get more boosts with Magnifying Glass? Arcane Enlightenment is right there

In Daisy this feels like a no brainer because she has the extra action just to use this. Harvey loves this because its an easy and reliable way to proc an activation of drawing a card during his turn. Minh can use it to keep powering her Skill commitment engine. Ursula can also trigger it using her extra action. This feels good for Trish, and Joe, and Roland as well. Hell, if you're clueving with Jenny, Charlie or Lola it seems like a no brainer. Darrell may want this over test-at-0, just for card draw. Mandy likes it, Norman, Rex looooooves the +2 boost. Everyone who can take it should consider it. The fact it doesn't exhaust can make for incredibly powerful turns with Amanda if she has a Deduction under her, if you set up a turn to just investigate with this 3 times going bam bam bam. She needs a little bit more of a boost than the others perhaps, but its crazy how efficient this is compared to any other asset at level 0 that has the Investigate keyword on it. Even Luke who has a higher brain stat, could respec to using this for the first few scenarios going standard seeker with Dr. Milan and Magnifying Glass and this for test at 7 until he gets more XP to dump Sixth Sense (4) or your spell of choice. He can even be running Perception and Deduction with this and be perfectly fine until he gets some 10-20XP.

I could compare this with Cryptographic Cipher, but that at least has a potential of gaining you 3 free investigates. But dammit I will compare, because this gives you 4 investigates you were going to do anyway, with a +2 (where the Cipher had a -2 to shroud on the action) and you can draw an extra card most of the time. It costs the same amount of resources, and has 1 extra use. The power creep is real. The closest comparison in fighters is Glory. Guardians or any fighter have very few benefits at level 0 the way this just gives it to you. The upgraded Thompson turning bullets into money, or On The Hunt getting you money for killing, or the upgrades on Runic Axe. Outside of Investigator powers like Tony's Bounties or Zoey's engagement, there simply is no comparison with how well Seeker cluevers get rewarded compared to Guardian fighters.

Once again, Seekers simply receive cards that straight up reward them for doing what they do best in the most efficient way. Even if there were an upgrade for this, I have no idea what it would need to add to make this better, because I could see this being in a deck from campaign start to campaign finish. I would run this over Magnifying Glass simply because I get the boost, and if I'm drawing more cards, I get to my skills such as Deduction or any of my other good cards much faster that it's irrelevant.

The Scarlet Keys had so many good cards for every class, and many archetypes, but this is subtly one of the best and I could very well see it as a new staple.

I wonder why fighters do not get weapons as good like Seekers get their toys. Why is there no lvl 0,1 hand weapon that says you get +2 fight, deal +1 dmg and if you succeed by 2 or more you draw a card? Probably would be a bit too much. You could argue that this does not give +1 clue but the basis of fight is dealing 2 dmg per hit to make it even good, not getting into the thing that getting clues is still more important than dealing dmg, as clues win you the game. Also, why do we not have a card like Crack the Case that is Guardian and says play when you defeat an enemy, gain x resources where x is that enemy's printed fight or health value?

I enjoy this thing greatly.

The large investigation boost can be used to let a less than stellar base beat mid level locations routinely or power through low difficulty spots and harness the card draw.

On the other hand it can synergize with folks like Ursula Downs or Rex Murphy, 4 character who want to be clueving but might be spending a lot of actions on other stuff like evading and moving, this will help those mid-hight stats beat big locations while simultaneously help you assemble your combo pieces.

Notably, the book character Daisy Walker has a funny way of being too busy with her book engine to actually properly engage as a cluever, handing her this specific book means that she get's to do her book thing but also progress the map a lot faster.

You -could- combo this with secret-mechanics like Ariadne's Twine but this is less a destination for secrets than it is a target of opportunity in a secrets based deck.

As an interesting combo piece - consider for Seekers who have level 0 Guardian access:

Grim Memoir with Alice Luxley and The Raven Quill - Living and Interwoven Ink (total 4xp). Total boosted +3 Int and 2 actions nets you 2 clues, 2 cards, and 2 testless damage on an enemy, even one engaged with you. Most committed Seeker skills cards can make this even more efficient with extra clues or cards. I'm working with this idea on a || Daisy who uses Whitton Greene to tutor everything out and then Calling in Favors to swap Whitton for Alice. Using a couple secrets generating cards can keep this combo going for the whole scenario.

Other seekers who could use this combo include Rex, Vincent, Joe, and actually Charlie. Rex is the most likely to appreciate this (and get extra clues with it). Vincent and Joe probably want the hand slots for other things. Not sure if this would be effective on Charlie, but would be fun to try.

I've recently been running a big hand Daisy deck and holy moly this card is freaking amazing; it's an absolute crime that it doesn't have an upgrade. Even on Hard difficulty, I gain pretty reliable card draw with my clue discovery, accelerating set up while also filling my hand. The cherry on top is it being a Tome, of course, being one of the few tomes that allow for clue-gathering of ANY kind with your tome action (and being the ONLY one that affords an investigate action proper tmk).

Outside of Daisy, I'll caution that you shouldn't JUMP on this card as its biggest standout is accelerated drawing power while investigating. That's always nice for the average investigator in general, sure, but if you don't really need the draw, Flashlight is frequently the better option since it's cheaper and reduces difficulty as opposed to buffing your stat. In addition, there are cards like Magnifying Glass, Fingerprint Kit, Deduction (minus the hand slot difference), etc. that are better suited for bolstering your investigative ability proper than the memoir.

But yes, that's if you don't need the draw, and many Seekers love drawing cards not just because some of their class set affords it, but because in many cases it DEMANDS it. Minh Thi Phan is often busy committing cards so much that her draw needs to keep up the pace (which is half of why Analytical Mind is one of the most critical gator signatures in the game imho), and of course Harvey needs in-turn draw in order to make ANY use of his ability. Grim Memoir pairs needed draw with EXACTLY what a Seeker wants to be doing without forcing them stop the clue-gathering in its tracks, drop their pants, and spend an action or two cranking out cards. Try pairing this with the Ancient Stone suite for pretty consistent procs, all the while gathering clues like you want to be doing.

Maaaaan, I really hope this gets an upgrade of some kind. I feel like it comfortably fits its lvl 0 spot, but it can be quite the impactful lvl 0, especially smack dab in the middle of the class it's a part of, and I'd love to see what kind of different ways they could take this card. Or even just double-down on its base function, that'd be fine, too.