Yesterday, I read The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom. This is the first book in a mystery series featuring Israel Armstrong, the new mobile librarian in the town of Tumdrum, Northern Ireland. The hook: when Israel arrives in Tumdrum (from North London) to take on his duties as librarian, he discovers that all of the books in the local library are missing! Oh, no! What's a slightly stodgy, unimaginative librarian to do?That's it. That's the mystery in a nutshell. It's a slightly silly, very light bonbon of a book. This is less a mystery - there's not really a sense of urgency or suspense in this book at all - than a clever device to introduce a slightly off-the-wall cast of characters:
- Israel Armstrong, the new local mobile librarian-turned-detective, who has to figure out how he fits into this community so different from his own;
- Ted Carson, the former mobile librarian and boxer who now operates the local taxi service;
- Linda Wei, Israel's new boss and antagonist and a representative of the town council;
- George, Israel's new landlord and a local farmer;
- Brownie, George's brother and a philosophy student at Cambridge;
- The Reverend England Roberts, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church.
It's a comedy of errors, and the first of what I'm sure is an entertaining series of mysteries.
