DEATH OF A BOOKSELLER

A persistent Middlesex police officer plunges into the surprisingly cutthroat world of bookselling in this savory reprint first published in 1956.

Ever since helping him home after a night spent drinking too much, Sgt. Jack Wigan has become a friend of Michael Fisk, who’s repaid the favor by teaching him a good deal about the trade in valuable old books. The lessons and the friendship end abruptly when Fisk is stabbed to death in his flat. The most prominent clue is one that’s gone missing: a copy of Keats’ Endymion that the poet had inscribed to himself in celebration. A run-in Wigan has with Fred Hampton, a rival book runner who’s always on the lookout for titles he can sell to collectors, makes him wonder if Hampton, whose violent temper is well known among other book runners, from “Charlie Boy” North to beautiful, brutal Ruth Brent, got carried away and killed Fisk. Seconded to DI J. Saggs of the Brabant CID, he helps assemble the evidence for an airtight case against Hampton. Even after Hampton’s conviction, however, Wigan has doubts about whether he’s really guilty, and his misgivings grow as the date of the execution looms. Enlisting North as his paid helper, he casts a wider net his superiors clearly don’t approve of and soon discovers unsavory behavior among so many runners that it’s a good thing their fellowship has had 70 years to recover from Farmer’s canny imprecations.

Not a unique treasure but a welcome pleasure for fans of classic British mysteries.