THE BOOKSELLER
Tim Sullivan (timsullivan.co.uk)
Head of Zeus (bloomsbury.com)
£20
Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop
Nonagenarian rare bookseller Torquil Squire returns from a book-buying trip to London to find his son, Ed, lying dead in the middle of his shop. When DS George Cross of the Avon and Somerset Police arrives on the scene he finds one of Torquil’s young staff members, Persephone, who locked herself in the bathroom; she has witnessed the exit of the man who killed her boss. The world of rare books seems like an unusual setting for such a brutal murder, but as Cross – and his partner Josie Ottey – dig into the death of Ed Squire, they find that the man is not all that he seemed in life. Relationships new and old are discovered and lead to new avenues of investigation for the Major Crimes Unit, and Cross and Ottey find themselves interviewing Russian mobsters, estranged family members and competitors in what turns out to be a cutthroat business, in an attempt to solve what might just be George Cross’s most difficult case yet.
I joined the George Cross series late, coming onboard with the fourth book, The Politician; The Bookseller marks the autistic detective’s seventh outing, and I’m pleased to say that Sullivan has managed to keep the characters and settings as fresh as ever. For this book, he throws some additional difficulties George’s way to see how the detective handles them: the book opens with George’s father, Raymond, informing his son that he has cancer, and will be undergoing a reasonably routine operation to have a tumour removed. Complications ensure that Raymond ends up spending a lot more time in hospital than originally planned, and leaves George wondering how he might survive in a world without the man who has been the only constant in his life. George’s condition means that he constantly tries to impose some kind of order on a disordered world: Chinese takeaway with his father on Wednesday night (he is finally coming to grips with the fact that this now includes his absentee mother once a fortnight, following her return to their lives), organ practice at the church on Thursday evening, and so on.
To compound this, Josie Ottey, George’s long-time partner, has just been promoted from Detective Sergeant to Detective Inspector, effectively making her his senior officer. This worries George that the team might well be split up, though it seems there’s no need to worry on that score, as their boss seems to understand that finding another partner who understands him so well, and tolerates his many idiosyncrasies, would be nigh on impossible. But there is an impact on the relationship and on the team dynamics, which is just another distraction to solving the case at hand. The relationship between these two characters is one of the many reasons to keep coming back to this series: they are more than just colleagues, and nobody understands how George’s mind works better than Josie. It’s difficult to see how the books would work without this pairing at their centre, and it’s good to see that Sullivan has found a way around this…at least for the near future.
Interpersonal relationships are, of course, all well and good, but most of the audience is here for the puzzle at the book’s heart (or maybe George is just so engaging that the puzzle is secondary, and people are just checking in with a man who feels like an old friend), and the puzzle at the heart of The Bookseller is as involved and twisted as we’ve come to expect from the series. George and Josie – aided and abetted by a colourful cast including forensic scientist Michael Swift and his girlfriend Alice Mackenzie, who is currently on sabbatical from the MCU – follow each lead as they encounter it, talking to friends, family, enemies and more as they try to piece together a picture of Ed Squire, and of the events that have led to him lying dead on the floor of his bookshop, stabbed by his own letter opener. Sullivan invests a lot of effort in the novel’s dialogue, which plays an important part in reaching the solution. Every conversation they have leads to something new, or contradicts something that has come before, forcing them back to the same people over and over again. These are not, it would seem, a particularly trustworthy bunch, and there is lots of tension between the various parties involved. George and Josie just can’t work out why, extracting the information one tiny shred at a time.
George, as always, is the standout here, his autism leaving him socially inept and unable to read cues from those around him. He gets up in the middle of conversations and leaves the room without saying a word when he feels he has got everything he needs; he is unable to read body language and often mistakes emotions for something they are not. Luckily Josie is on-hand to keep him right and take care of the social niceties. George excels in the puzzle-solving, his mind working at a problem until he has the solution. He cuts directly to the heart of things, asking questions that would seem rude from anyone else, and uses his “just one more thing” Columbo trick to great effect on a number of occasions, catching people off-guard when they think they’ve managed to get rid of him. The solution, when it arrives, is a satisfying one, made all the more so because there are so many other equally plausible scenarios that make the time and effort worthwhile.
George Cross is a detective without compare, a man who stands out from the crowd and who, despite his often abrasive manner, is an engaging and identifiable character that we want to spend time with; once you’ve read your first George Cross novel, you’ll find yourself in for the long haul and I know I’m not the only reader hoping that Sullivan has enough ideas to keep him going for many years to come. The character – and those around him – evolve and mature from book to book and, while George will never be a man comfortable in his own skin, it feels good to watch him learn to navigate the modern world despite his disability, and with the help of his friends and family. It’s worth reading the books in order; each is a self-contained mystery and can easily be read out of order, but the background is important here, and it is worthwhile taking the time to get to know George and Josie and everyone else in chronological order.
Tim Sullivan has created one of crime fictions great characters in the form of George Cross. The Bookseller is a wonderful addition to a series that seems to be going from strength to strength. A well-crafted mystery, the gentle pace of the story (Bristol is much more laid back than London, if these books are anything to go by) and the humour that shines throughout make this a pleasure to read – not just this latest instalment, but the entire series. The glimpse it gives into the world of rare book dealers is interesting enough to be worth the price of admission along. I can’t recommend these books, these characters, enough and am eagerly awaiting the next instalment.
