Bibliomysteries: Stories of Crime in the World of Books and Bookstores

Otto Penzler knows a good crime story when he sees it. Particularly when those stories are centered in and around bookshops, libraries, and the written word. So an entire collection featuring crime stories with books at the heart of the action? How can you go wrong?

You can’t, and Bibliomysteries is one of the best crime anthologies I’ve encountered in a long, long time. Whether it’s a crime lord with a taste for rare novels or a fabled book of Jewish writing hidden during the Holocaust, a police chief investigating a local book club or an unexpected work written by a distant father figure, the characters and scenarios in these stories feel richer and more fully realized because of the presence of books all around.

The collection closes strong with a case set in a bookstore, complete with a visiting author and a hardscrabble, overworked detective who thinks there’s something fishy. But even a story rife with the cliches of the genre still manages to entertain and surprise you.

Bibliomysteries is a two-fold celebration of what makes books great. Penzler has done it again with this one.