The Grim Reader

April 27, 2020
Bestseller Carlisle’s delightful 14th Bibliophile mystery (after 2019’s The Book Supremacy) takes San Francisco book restorer Brooklyn Wainwright and her hubby, former MI5 agent Derek Stone, to the town of Dharma in Sonoma County, where Brooklyn’s parents operate a winery. Her mom, Becky, is in charge of Dharma’s first book festival, which will include a musical staging of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and booths devoted to local wineries. Brooklyn and Derek offer to protect Becky after obnoxious Jacob Banyan makes numerous threats in an attempt to force Becky to allot him a booth to promote his tacky box wine. When a festival committee member is murdered, Becky suspects Banyan, but others soon emerge as possible culprits. A diverting subplot involves a difficult actor in the Little Women production, and fascinating booklore enhances the whodunit plot. This long-running cozy series shows no signs of losing steam. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency.

May 15, 2020
Bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright and her husband, Derek, former MI6, head to her hometown of Dharma, in California's wine country, for a book festival being planned by Brooklyn's mother, Becky. The Wainwright family is deeply involved in the festival, loosely themed around Little Women. Brooklyn will have a booth showing off her virtuoso bookbinding skills, and she is restoring a first edition of Little Women for auction; her sister is directing a musical presentation of the story; and Becky is cochair of the event. Things are not well with the planning committee, however. One member is openly hostile to Becky's leadership, another is pouting because of a casting decision in the musical, and an aggressive local businessman accuses Becky's cochair of embezzlement. Later that evening, Becky and Derek's mother find the cochair dead in the meeting room. The show must and does go on. Fans of this series will know that the first edition Brooklyn is restoring holds the key to the murder and will appreciate the details concerning Alcott's novel and the fine art of bookbinding and restoring that frames the mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)