Poisoned Pen Press has cleverly caught a new bibliomystery, written by a Toronto librarian and book reviewer. In THE DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS,
Eva Jurczyk offers a glimpse into the high stakes of university funding, and at the same time provides a classic "follow the money" mystery with a strong-getting-stronger protagonist.
Liesl Weiss hasn't been able to get a top position at her university's most prestigious library—the special collections one, with the irreplaceable manuscripts. As an assistant to the amazing Christopher Wolfe, who manages both big-money donors and the collections themselves, she's been under a lot less stress than if she'd been at the top. So she was actually on sabbatical with a year off from responsibilities, when her boss lost the capacity to manage anything:
Before Christopher's brain had set itself on fire, he had lacked a talent for details and had been reliant on Liesl to keep him to schedules and plans. Which was why ... she had called Christopher three weeks ago to remind him that the combination to the safe was scheduled to be changed. He was supposed to call her back once it was done and tell her the new code because it was prudent to make sure it was stored in more than one place. But Christopher and details being what they were, the call had never come.
Though Liesl can't open the safe for the university president, she quickly comes up with an alternative for that very day, to distract donors with another flashy item. "Another book was what Christopher would have proposed, Liesl was sure of it. As sure as she was that [university president] Garber didn't want a creative solution from Christopher's second-in-command. He wanted Christopher."
Though her distract-the-donors maneuver functions well enough for the moment, she's got to get the priceless manuscript out of that safe. And once the combination is discovered, she expects some relief. Unfortunately, the safe turns out to be empty. Surrounded by colleagues eager to see her fail, with one in particular ready to shove her down any handy staircase of issues, rediscovering the purloined "Plantin Polyglot Bible" is essential for her self-esteem and any hope of keeping the job she's temporarily holding down.
From here on, scholarly intrigue and greed run rampant. Swinging from one fraught situation to the next, Liesl is forced to set aside her mild and bookish approach. At least, in public. In private, in a moldy bathroom in the history department, she'll ball up a wad of paper towels, crush them against her face, and let loose a scream ... then gets back to a truly Sherlockian process of eliminating all possible suspects, until the one left is, let us say: highly improbable. At least, at first glance.
A true bibliomystery, rife with manuscript details and odd end of binding minutiae, is rare enough. Coupling it with a determined and maturing amateur sleuth doubles the achievement. Although this is Jurczyk's debut novel, her many articles and reviews have clearly honed her skills, and the pace is excellent, the writing smooth and exhilarating.
THE DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS will be released January 25, so this is an excellent moment to pre-order a copy for a very good read, indeed.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
