Death of a Bookseller by Bernard Farmer

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

First published in the 1950s, this reissue of a “British Crime Classic” may not be everyone’s cup of tea.  Sgt. Jack Wigan becomes friends with Michael Fisk, who buys, sells, and collects rare books.  He encourages Wigan to take up the hobby, which he does. To his surprise, he finds it an intriguing hobby.  Then he is called to Fisk’s house in an official capacity:  his friend has been murdered. To make matters worse, it appears that Fisk was attempting to summon a demon at the time of his death, which is repugnant to the religious Wigan.  Still, he is determined to find out who—or what—murdered his friend.

I am a sucker for a classic British mystery and I wasn’t familiar with the author, so I decided to give this one a try.  The preface warns that there are some attitudes and sentiments that modern audiences might find offensive, but that the editor chose to leave such things as they were to more accurately reflect the times.  I agree with that sentiment as I like to see how things really were, not a modern sanitized version.

I was fascinated by the descriptions of the book trade among the poorer elements: mostly men whose find of a valuable book might feed them for more than a day or two or get shelter for the night. These were people who had to be able to determine at a glance if a book would bring a shilling or a penny, and might have to scrap to get it before someone else snatched it up. They not only have to know condition and edition, but what genres are selling. At this time, it seemed buyers were mostly Americans who were snapping up titles left and right, sometimes to the dismay of the British.

The book does a wonderful job of conveying a sense of time and place, as well as the excitement of book collecting.  Some reviewers found the book a bit slow but I liked the pacing because I enjoyed the setting. 

Interestingly enough, Farmer was a book collector himself and liked to use books and bookselling in his novels. This has made them particularly collectible among those who like books about books, which I think fitting.