Last week was Living Donor Day! Find out more about organ donation in last week’s blog post and Unlawful Harvest, the first book in the Kenzie Kirsch Medical Thriller series.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
Booked to Die by John Dunning is the first book in the Cliff Janeway series. Janeway is a homicide cop with a personal vendetta against a man he knows to be a serial killer, but who keeps slipping through his fingers. He is on the hunt for the person responsible for the death of a book scout, who initially appeared to be another victim of the serial killer but was not. Janeway is a book collector himself and knows a lot of the players in the book sale business in the town, and he starts to make his rounds. But things happen and he ends up out of the police force and setting up shop as a bookseller.
What makes Booked to Die a compelling read is the author’s attention to detail when it comes to the rare book industry. Dunning’s experience as a Denver Post police reporter in the 1970s and his ongoing involvement in the used and rare book trade served as the inspiration for the Cliff Janeway novels. As a result, readers get a glimpse into the inner workings of the book sale business, which adds an extra layer of intrigue to the murder mystery.
I am still unwinding this mystery, but I would not hesitate to pick up another in the series.
This is the story of a dead man, how he got that way, and what happened to some other people because of his death.
John Dunning, Booked to Die
Summary
Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he’s an avid collector of rare and first editions. Bobby Westfall is a local bookscout, a gentle and quiet man who has sold enough valuable books to keep himself and his cats fed and housed. When Bobby is murdered, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect’s spine. But the suspect, local lowlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway’s wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge.
Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop—all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. When prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now Janeway’s life is about to change in profound and shocking ways as he attempts to find out who’s dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains.
