Book Review: The Book Thing by Laura Lippman

The Book Thing is yet another eBook short in the Bibliomysteries series; a series that I’ve really come to love. There’s nothing like a good short story, and when its subject matter is books, then it’s even better.

The author tells us the story of a neighborhood children’s bookshop in North Baltimore, where her trademark heroine Tess Monaghan, buys the goods for her daughter, Carla Scout. Tess thinks that it’s great that places like this still exist, and she does everything she possibly can to support it.

However noble her actions may be though, the bookshop is in jeopardy, not only because of the competition from the eBook market, but also because someone is stealing many books every now and then, without ever being caught. Tess decides to work the case pro bono, in order to set things right. So she sets shop in the shop, and lies in wait for the perp to show his face.

She doesn’t spend all her time there though, so while the tale unfolds, we get to follow her to her everyday walks around the neighborhood, we meet someone who’s widely known as the Walking Man, and we learn some things about the pessimist owner and the optimist sales girl of the bookshop.

As the story progresses the plot takes a weird turn that even makes Tess stand still for a moment in utter surprise, as the perp is just someone who’s trying to do something right, the wrong way. And he, just like the heroine, has the love of books as his driving force.

If you expect too much action and a deep-seeded mystery in the book at hand, perhaps you’ll be disappointed. However if you want to read a well-written story about lonely souls, and not so desperate people, who find refuge in the pages of the books, you’ll absolutely love it. This is one of the best volumes in the series.

Reviews of other books in the series:

The Book of Virtue by Ken Bruen
An Acceptable Sacrifice by Jeffery Deaver
The Scroll by Anne Perry

Book Review: The Book of Virtue by Ken Bruen

I will say it right from the start: This eBook short would be much better if it was a little bit longer. The story is good, the plot is solid, the humor is a big plus, but the pages are just not enough.

The Book of Virtue is the story of a young man who's suffered a lot in the hands of his abusive father, a man who was "Tough. Cruel. Merciless... when he was happy." Frank was a cop, working in the streets of New York, so when he could not appease his rage on the thugs, he did it by hitting his son. His police pals described him as difficult, but he knew him better than that. So when he died he was more than happy, and in his memory he played "Another One Bites the Dust."

After his father's death, things changed for the better. He got a job at a fancy club and started making some money, and he was in love with his best friend's girlfriend, CiCi. CiCi and he seemed to have a lot in common. They liked the same things, they definitely liked each other, and they loved books; or at least she did, since she combined "Sensuality with knowledge," while he was not a great reader. In fact the only book he has read in ages was the one that his father left him, called Virtue, which made him think that maybe his old man was trying to fill in the blanks of his education with that single volume.

We don't get to learn too much about CiCi's reading habits though, since right now the time has come for both of them to move on with their lives. They know how to do it, how to score big, but they need to move carefully, in order to make things work out the way they want them to. Thank God she's a brilliant girl who can really come up with a great plan, but...

The characters are well-crafted and the twists and turns quite surprising, but as I've already mentioned this story is a bit short for my taste. A more elaborate plot or a wider cast of characters could do it some good