If you like mysteries and you like books, there’s a collection of stories you should know about. Bibliomysteries: Volume Two, edited by Otto Penzler and to be published in August by Pegasus, is just what the title implies: a collection of crime stories about rare books, bookshops, libraries, manuscripts, magical books, collectors, and the like.
Among the 15 stories, Ian Rankin sets his tale of the lost manuscript of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the legendary Paris bookshop Shakespeare & Co., while F. Paul Wilson offers a book with remarkable powers; Joyce Carol Oates portrays an overly ambitious dealer in mystery fiction; James Grady has the “Condor” working in the Library of Congress; Stephen Hunter tells a previously unknown story of Alan Turing set during World War I; and Peter Lovesey writes about a box full of Agatha Christie titles that just might be priceless.
“As a ‘book person’ my entire life, and a mystery fan for the past half-century, I’ve had a special warm spot in my heart for books about books ever since I read Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop when I was a teenager,” said editor Penzler in his introduction.
“A few years ago,” Penzler continues, “when the Mysterious Bookshop was having severe financial difficulties….I thought we might make a little money to keep the creditors at bay if we published some things that could only be bought in our store…..I asked several authors who were friends to write an original bibliomystery for the bookstore.
“We published them as paperbacks…The first 15 stories in that series were published under the creative title Bibliomysteries, and now here are the next 15.”
Incidentally, we can save you a trip to the dictionary and tell you that the word “bibliomystery” does not appear.
Whether your taste is for the traditional mystery, something a little more hard-boiled, or the bizarre and humorous, you likely will find something satisfying in this latest collection.
Bibliomysteries: Volume II will be available for purchase on August 7th. Bibliomysteries: Volume I is available now.
