Booked to Die by John Dunning

For book lovers and mystery lovers alike, I’ve got a read for you... Booked to Die by John Dunning. Booked to Die is John Dunning’s first Cliff Janeway novel (currently up to 5 books so far) and, obviously, the place to get in on this wonderful mystery series. This book is a fast paced enjoyable mystery which should be of special interest to booksellers, book collectors, and bibliophiles of all sorts.

Cliff Janeway, a book collecting Denver cop, is out to solve the murder of a local book scout. In the process of having Janeway solve the mystery, the reader is treated to a nice assortment of book collecting/selling tidbits and lore (for example - if you don’t know what a book scout is, this series of books is worth the price of admission for the knowledge you will gain about the book biz alone). Additionally, as Dunning illustrates, the book trade world is populated by some unique and fascinating characters. The fact that all this book love is all rolled into an enjoyable mystery, with some truly unexpected twists and turns, just makes it that much better.

From identifying a first edition to opening a book store, this series of mysteries, when taken as whole, is a bibliophile’s treasury of information. At some point I would love to reread the entire series, taking notes as I go, just to be able to list the amount of book knowledge a reader can gain through reading John Dunning’s Cliff Janeway Bookman series. Of course, John Dunning isn’t just a bookman (yep, he is an actual bookseller) who writes mysteries, he is one that writes fabulous mysteries that would be enjoyable to even someone who doesn’t care about the side subject matter of books... I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to read an entertaining high quality mystery. And it is a must read for book collectors/lovers/sellers. Read it!
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Collector’s note - the first edition of Booked to Die, due to a relatively small printing and the subject matter, is a rather collectible book. Currently, it seems, a fine first is going in the neighborhood of $500+ on up (some later printings even go for a fair bit of change as well). John Dunning, in the introduction to the most recent editions, even talks about his book in relation to the phenomenon of collecting hypermodern first editions - yes, an introduction to a book that is actually fascinating to read, hard to believe, but true.