Murder in the Bookshop

by Carolyn Wells

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 256
Rating:

Synopsis:

A classic locked room murder mystery which will have a special resonance for lovers and collectors of Golden Age detective fiction. Includes a bonus murder story: 'The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery'.

A successful poet and children's author, Carolyn Wells discovered mystery fiction in her forties and went on to become one of America's most popular Golden Age writers. Penning 82 detective novels between 1909 and her death in 1942, she was mourned in 1968 by the great John Dickson Carr as one of mystery fiction's 'lost ladies now well lost', and remains undeservedly neglected 50 years later. Murder in the Bookshop is a story laced with criminality, locked rooms and bookish intricacies that any bibliophile will find irresistible.

This Detective Club hardback is introduced by award-winning writer and authority on Golden Age detective fiction, Curtis Evans, and includes 'The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery', a murderous tale of literary shenanigans that was one of the last pieces of detective fiction which Carolyn Wells ever published.

I picked up Carolyn Wells’ Murder in the Bookshop because 1) bookshop, 2) classic mystery, and 3) female author name from whom I hadn’t read anything yet. It’s American rather than British, which is part of why I hadn’t come across the author before. This volume also contained a short story, “The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery”.

As far as the setup goes it’s fairly typical, with various hallmarks of the genre: a controlling husband, a younger wife who has developed a relationship with someone who works for her husband, the murder of said husband, a private detective, and of course, suspicion of the wife and the employee. In addition we have the stolen book, and various legit-sounding details around rare books and the rare book trade.

It falls down on inconsistency, though. One moment Fleming Stone says it’d be dangerous for the young wife and her lover to seem close, and the next (without any debate or comment) he’s talking to the police about it quite casually. “I’m not going to show this to her,” he says, only a couple of pages before he promptly does so. It just feels like a bunch of steps are being missed out — things there might be reasons for, but which you need to hear the reasons for before they make sense.

In addition, the ending is very, very rushed, and suddenly you no longer see any of the moving parts. It’s also one of those mysteries that keeps key info from the reader, which is a pet peeve for some.

It’s a shame, really, but I don’t think I’d read anything by this author again — it was too unsatisfying.

Rating: 1/5