Ian Sansom, The Case of the Missing Books

The Case of the Missing Books

Ian Sansom

Harper, Jan 2007, $12.95

ISBN: 0060822503

Israel Armstrong left London and his girlfriend Gloria for the Rathkletair Borough librarian position in Tumdrum, Northern Ireland. However, when he arrives at the small town, the Jewish vegetarian is stunned to find a sign on the door of the locked facility that announces the library is permanently closed. Deputy Head of Entertainment, Leisure, and Community Services Linda Wei imperiously explains to the mortified Israel that he remains under contract to them though he has no building to tender; instead he will serve as the Outreach Support Officer of the modern Mobile Learning Centre; in other words a distraught Israel will drive a bookmobile.

Israel adapts to his new circumstance trying to improve the decrepit van while living on a nearby farm where he is attracted to the farmer's daughter George who sets him up in a locale where the chicken poo is the best smell. However, he soon has other problems when he catalogues the inventory only to find 15,000 books missing. He begins a quest based on the sleuths he has read to recover the lost tomes, but soon learns other libraries with buildings have purloined them even as he finds a second female to dally with in the form of reporter Veronica.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING BOOKS is an amusing, amateur sleuth tale starring a fish out of water struggling to adjust to his new environs as the hero finds everyone treats him like the dope in the "Rope-a-dope". The storyline is fast-paced, focusing on the escapades of the displaced London Jew whose senses are overwhelmed by excrement that he either steps in, falls in, or simply smells in. Ian Samson provides an amusing tale starring a seemingly out-of-place bibliophile whose lofty goal of bringing literature to a horde of eccentrics seems more difficult than building the Chunnel.

Harriet Klausner