This month I thought I

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This month I thought I'd depart from featuring a specific author and offer up a short piece on a genre of mysteries...

Bibliomysteries, books with settings, plots, characters, that are related to books, libraries or authors, have always intrigued me. There are hundreds of these, some stand-alone, and many in a series. Mysteries in the land of books, what could be better? Here are a few of my favorites:

Burglars Can't be Choosers by Lawrence Block (not owned by Saxton B. - Interlibrary loan a copy)
First in a series which features Bernie Rhondenbarr, a bookstore owner and most likeable crook.

Booked to Die by John Dunning
You've got to give credit to author John Dunning who states he'd like to be the poster child for ADD. He quit high school, got kicked out of the army but went on to become an honored author In his words "In 1984, with my wife Helen, I opened the Old Algonquin Bookstore in East Denver. We closed the store in 1994, two years after Booked to Die was published, and have been online booksellers ever since." Booked to Die is the first in the series introducing Cliff Janeway, Denver cop and rare book collector. You can't go wrong with this series.

Dead Water Creek by Alex Brett -not readily available - try used book stores
Here's one you might not have come across. Morgan O'Brien, the primary sleuth, relies heavily on help from research science librarian, Sylvia Delgado to solve her mysteries.

In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
...A classic in my book. A medieval mystery in a monastic Italian library. Before Robert Langdon and The DaVinci Code, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville used his superior power of deductive reasoning to solve a series of murders in the abbey.

Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
...Living in a small sussex village in England, widow, Florence Greene plans to use an inheritance to open a bookstore. Not all the seaside residents are happy to see her succeed. Fine writing, contemplative story, made this a winner for me.

Need some additional suggestions? Visit Simmons College GSLIS BiblioMystery Collection.

Quoted from the Simmons website

Mysteries in which books, manuscripts, libraries of any kind, archives, publishing houses, or bookstores occupy a central role, or mysteries in which librarians, archivists, booksellers, etc. are protagonists or antagonists (and preferably the location or occupation is important to the plot or theme). Not academic mysteries or mysteries which happen to be about journalists, authors, or literary figures unless libraries, books, manuscripts, archives, and so on, are important to the plot.

The physical collection exists in the Simmons College Library, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115-5898. For more information, contact Candy Schwartz (candy.schwartz@simmons.edu, or 617-521-2849).

http://web.simmons.edu/~schwartz/bibmyst-c.html

or take a look at this list of bibliomysteries compiled by the subscribers of Fiction_L mailing list...

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Sue Henry
Carole Nelson Douglas
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