Status Updates From Bibliomysteries

15. The Book Case (#4 - 2012) **** by Nelson DeMille. We follow the thinking and deductions of a detective when he investigates an apparent accident at a book store, which may turn out to be murder. A good police procedural, although sometimes marred by juvenile asides e.g. “my tummy was growling.”

14. The Caxton Lending Library & Book Depository (#12 - 2013) **** by John Connolly. This is one of my absolute favourites of the Bibliomysteries series. I had already read it separately and reviewed it at length as A Bibliophile’s Delight.

13. Rides a Stranger (#13 – 2013) ***** by David Bell. Really terrific story about a son discovering that his father had written a pulp western novel in his youth which, due to its limited print run, now has an extraordinary rarity value. Others are hoping to acquire the few existing copies, some who will stop at nothing to do so.

12. The Long Sonata of the Dead (#10 – 2013) **** by Andrew Taylor. Two rivals from back in University days turn out to both be researching the work of an obscure (fictional) poet, who apparently originated the line “the long sonata of the dead”, later used by Samuel Beckett. The less successful writer sees a chance to perhaps regain his lost love who had married the more successful writer.

11. It’s in the Book (#15 – 2013) ** by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins. A mafioso don dies and a ledger where he kept a record of his bribes and payoffs is missing and both the Feds & the Mob need to find it. This was an unfinished Mike Hammer story at the time of Spillane’s passing, later completed by Collins. Reviewed as Hammer Time.

10. The Scroll (#3 - 2011) **** by Anne Perry. Through an estate sale, a mysterious scroll comes into the possession of a rare book dealer. Various suspicious buyers want to acquire it, each for their own ends. The text on the scroll itself can’t be photocopied or photographed for some reason. Finally, a fateful auction is held.

9. The Book Thing (#9 - 2012) *** by Laura Lippman. Investigator Tess Monaghan looks into why books are disappearing from a children’s book store. Her solution is helped by Baltimore’s The Book Thing which is a real-life free book outlet. The books aren’t actually “deadly” in this one.

8. Death Leaves a Bookmark (#6 - 2012) *** by William Link. A ne’er do well nephew murders his rich bookstore owner uncle with a book case and an art book, but he didn’t expect Detective Columbo to be on the case. Yes! That Columbo! TV writer William Link (1933-2020) was the co-creator of the TV series character played by Peter Falk.

7. Book Club (#8 - 2012) *** by Loren D. Estleman. A book store owner and book club leader is consulted by the police when a local bibliophile is murdered and a rare volume from his extensive library has gone missing.

6. What’s In A Name? (#14 - 2013) **** by Thomas H. Cook. In an alternative history story, two German veterans of WWI meet in America in 1968. WW2 never happened. One of the men is a bibliophile and the other is a down on his heels tramp who carries around his memoir manuscript. Many readers will guess who the tramp is and the title of the book before it ends.

5. The Final Testament (#11 - 2013) by Peter Blauner. A dying Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in 1939 London is confronted by a Nazi conspiracy to appropriate and distort his final work, the controversial Moses and Monotheism. The author’s afterword explains that Nazi official Anton Sauerwald was a real person who did actually help to facilitate the Freud family’s escape from Austria.

4. The Book of Ghosts (#2 - 2011) *** by Reed Farrel Coleman. A concentration camp survivor has been lying about a supposed “Book of Ghosts” written by a fellow prisoner who did not survive. But 70 years later his lie may be revealed to the world.

3. The Book of Virtue (#1 – 2011) * by Ken Bruen. A real dud with a 17-year-old bouncer ensnared by a 25-year-old femme fatale. Ridiculous spelling errors on various name-dropped actors and writers, which this 2017 anthology couldn’t even be arsed to correct from the 2011 original.

2. Pronghorns of the Third Reich (#5 – 2012) ** by C.J. Box. Two down on their luck ranch hands kidnap a lawyer in order to steal a rare book collection. Somewhat ridiculous background to this one, which can be deduced from the title.

1. An Acceptable Sacrifice (#7 - 2012) **** by Jeffery Deaver. A Mexican and American agent find a way into a cartel boss’s inner sanctum by tempting the his bibliophile obsession with a rare copy of Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop.

[Going for the whole enchilada, or at least the first 15 stories of the series. Found this in the Toronto Public Library. First surprise was that the order in the book is not the chronological order of publication as listed at https://www.goodreads.com/series/4101..., so presumably re-ordered to leave a stronger impression at the front end, choosing the Deaver over the Bruen.]