Ripped From the Pages

June 1, 2015
Rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright knows as much about finding corpses as she does about books, as shown in Carlisle's uneven ninth bibliophile mystery (after 2014's The Book Stops Here). Brooklyn and her hunky boyfriend, English security expert Derek Stone, are in Dharma, Calif., when a cave is opened on the property of the Sonoma County winery run by the commune where Brooklyn's parents live. Not surprisingly, there's a body in the cave, the mummified remains of a Frenchman. What's more, the cave contains a treasure trove of European artwork transported to the U.S. in secret, as the French wanted to save it from the Nazis. Guru Bob, the commune leader, is the descendant of one of those French émigrés. Brooklyn turns sleuth when a threatening stranger arrives in Dharma. It's an intriguing setup, but the characters are mostly on the thin side, so it's hard to care what happens to them. It's the reader's choice whether all the New Age accoutrements are charming or a cause for eye-rolling.