Homicide in Hardcover: a Bibliofile Mystery by Kate Carlisle
Reviewed by Gerti
I love books and so does the main character in Kate Carlisle's "Homicide in Hardcover," we just love them in different ways. I love to read (and review!) them, and protagonist Brooklyn Wainwright loves to restore them. This book is certainly good reading if you are interested in finding out all about the tools and equipment used to do just that.
It is less entertaining, or at least was for me, if you are interested in real characters in real settings. Or real good writing! There are very few books that I stop reading (perhaps one or tow during my lifetime), but I was very close to doing that after trying to plow through this novel's first chapter. Starting with the fact that I found the main characters name pretty obnoxious (not that anyone named Gerti should even try to make THAT argument!) I also hated her life details even from the start. It felt like I was reading a rehash of recent alternative mystery series with occupational hooks like "This Pen for Hire" (by Laura Levine)or the Hannah Swensen mysteries by Joanne Fluke, which involve a lady who runs a bakery, but just happens to find dead bodies everywhere.
"Homicide in Hardcover" is formulaic like that. Take a heroine with a vocation, in this case repairing rare and expensive books for people, and throw a dead body in front of her. In this case, that of her former mentor in the business, Abraham Karastovsky. Of course, you need to have the heroine cross the path of a difficult but gorgeous man, with whom she begins a relationship. And then toss in a few stereotypical baddies, like a woman who wears tight leather and speaks with a foreign accent. Add some odd parents, in this case hippies who run a winery, and some equally eccentric neighbors. In Levine's case, a gay man with super sensitive hearing. In this case, a pair of lesbians with a cat and house pants which need tending. Can you see how this is all beginning to sound familiar?
Of the three writers, Levine, is the best, but I enjoy Fluke's recipes as well. That leaves Carlisle as the odd woman out, although apparently she does have quite a following because a number of books in the Bibliophile series have been published. I just don't think I'll be reading another one, as I found so much of this so implausible. Solves the murder, inherits millions, and ends up with a hunky Brit with a Bentley? Come on! If I'm going to be reading fantasy, I'd prefer to visit outer space. And if I want comedy, I'll read Levine or Evanovich, who are much funnier writers. In the end, I just didn't like any of the characters enough to want to spend time with them again.
