Mystery Books
Mysteries
Contests, Games
Other Mystery
The Bookman's Promise
A Cliff Janeway Mystery
John Dunning
Scribner (Hardcover)
10-digit ISBN: 0743249925 (0-7432-4992-5)
13-digit ISBN: 9780743249928 (978-0-7432-4992-8)
Publication Date: March, 2004
List Price: $25.00
Synopsis (from the publisher):The quest begins when an old woman, Josephine Gallant, learns that Janeway has recently bought at auction a signed first edition by the legendary nineteenth-century explorer Richard Francis Burton. The book is a true classic, telling of Burton's journey (disguised as a Muslim) to the forbidden holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The Boston auction house was a distinguished and trustworthy firm, but provenance is sometimes murky and Josephine says the book is rightfully hers.
She believes that her grandfather, who was living in Baltimore more than eighty years ago, had a fabulous collection of Burton material, including a handwritten journal allegedly detailing Burton's undercover trip deep into the troubled American South in 1860. Josephine remembers the books from her childhood, but everything mysteriously disappeared shortly after her grandfather's death.
With little time left in her own life, Josephine begs for Janeway's promise: he must find her grandfather's collection. It's a virtually impossible task, Janeway suspects, as the books will no doubt have been sold and separated over the years, but how can he say no to a dying woman?
It seems that her grandfather, Charlie Warren, traveled south with Burton in the spring of 1860, just before the Civil War began. Was Burton a spy for Britain? What happened during the three months in Burton's travels for which there are no records? How did Charlie acquire his unique collection of Burton books? What will the journal, if it exists, reveal?
When a friend is murdered, possibly because of a Burton book, Janeway knows he must find the answers. Someone today is willing to kill to keep the secrets of the past, and Janeway's search will lead him east: To Baltimore, to a Pulitzer Prize-winning author with a very stuffed shirt, and to a pair of unorthodox booksellers. It reaches a fiery conclusion at Fort Sumter off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina.
What's more, a young lawyer, Erin d'Angelo, and ex-librarian Koko Bujak, have their own reasons for wanting to find the journal. But can Janeway trust them?
Review: The Bookman's Promise, by John Dunning, is the 3rd mystery in the Cliff Janeway series with the ex-cop and current used bookstore owner searching for a lost collection of books by famed explorer Richard Burton. Dunning has once again produced an outstanding, literate, and creative work of crime fiction in a series that began with Booked To Die, winner of the prestigious Nero Wolfe Award.
Dunning has taken a fact-based historical mystery of the trip Richard Burton made to the US in the mid-1860s and seamlessly blended it within a fictional search for a journal by Burton that may by the key to its solution. Upon concluding the book, many readers will likely spend time researching the life of Richard Burton; as a helpful start, Dunning provides references to three biographies that no doubt played a not insignificant role in crafting this story.
In addition to the mystery of the Burton collection, there is a murder to be solved. Watching Janeway piece all the evidence together to what is, in retrospect, an obvious solution, is one of the joys of reading a mystery in this series. Dunning is a master at hiding the clues in plain sight just waiting for someone, the reader or Janeway, to connect the dots.
The Bookman's Promise is one of the best mysteries of the year and should be on every collector's bookshelf.
Review Copyright © 2002 Hidden Staircase Mystery Books
Other mysteries in this series by John Dunning:
Booked to Die
A Cliff Janeway Mystery
Scribner (1992)
ISBN: 0-684-19383-3
The Bookman's Wake
A Cliff Janeway Mystery
Scribner (1995)
ISBN: 0-684-80003-9
The Sign of the Book
A Cliff Janeway Mystery
Scribner (2005)
ISBN: 0-7432-5505-4
The Bookwoman's Last Fling
A Cliff Janeway Mystery
Scribner (2006)
ISBN: 0-7432-8945-5
Omnimystery keyword(s) for The Bookman's Promise ...
Locations referenced: Baltimore, Boston, Charleston.
