2017, Scribner
336 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 11/13/17
Goodreads rating: 3.81 - 7705 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Denver
First line/s: "Lydia heard the first flap of paper wings as the first book fell from its shelf."
My comments: A couple of friends of GoodReads liked this book, so I thought I'd give it a try. The story slowly pulled e in. Took me awhile to get into it, but once I did I didn't want to put it down. I really like the way it was written, it reminded me of gently folding a dry ingredient into a wet one when baking. It had many, many layers to it, especially a well-flushed-out cast of characters. The setting, Denver, Colorado, is almost like one of the characters. As the tragic story unfolds, one gets a strong feeling about which way it's headed, but there are still many surprises, twists, and turns. This is not a police procedural or any sort of murder mystery. It's a solid psychological mystery and I very much recommend it.
Goodreads synopsis: “Sullivan’s debut is a page-turner featuring a heroine bookseller who solves a cold case with clues from books—what is not to love?” —Nina George, author of The Little French Bistro, and the New York Times bestselling The Little Paris Bookshop
When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this fiendishly clever debut novel from an award-winning short story writer.
Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves.
But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?
As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left. Bedazzling, addictive, and wildly clever, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a heart-pounding mystery that perfectly captures the intellect and eccentricity of the bookstore milieu and will keep you guessing until the very last page.
