THE SETTING
The body of a bookseller is discovered, lying in a pool of blood in his Bristol bookshop. Police have one question: how did the man meet such a violent, murderous end in this peaceful place?THE CONFLICT
DS Cross’s ability to dismiss red herrings is challenged by a worrying development in his personal life. Hopelessly distracted, he needs to rely on those around him in a way he has never been comfortable doing before.THE MURDER PLOT
It may be a quiet profession, but it’s full of passionate, ambitious characters who know the value of a rare book. Their extensive reading means they also know how to get away with murder.But is that enough to fool the tenacious DS George Cross?
The Bookseller marks the seventh instalment in Tim Sullivan’s series featuring the brilliant but eccentric Bristol-based DS George Cross. It’s the first one that I’ve read, but the title grabbed me and I dived right in.
A bookseller is found dead in his antique bookshop in a pool of blood. But who would want the quiet old gent dead? Turns out there are quite a few…
I really enjoyed this book. DS Cross is a fascinating character, able to pick out the tiniest of clues from a scene, but struggling to relate to other people due to his autism. The intermix of the crisis in his home life clashing against the murder case was nicely done against the backdrop of the rare book business. I had fun trying to figure out who might have been the culprit, though Sullivan throws in plenty of red herrings along the way!
Needless to say I was not successful in my sleuthing (good job I’m not a detective, eh?) but did spot some of the clues along the way. There’s a nice gentle humour at times in the book too, which added to my enjoyment of the story.
It may be the latest book in the series, but one which can be enjoyed as a standalone, and I will definitely be delving into DS Cross’s back catalogue of cases!
The Bookseller by Tim Sullivan is published by Aries and is out now. Many thanks to the publisher for an advance ebook copy to review via NetGalley.
