Review: The Bookman's Promise

Dunning is the author of two previous highly regarded books featuring protagonist Cliff Janeway - a former cop in love with books who now runs a used bookstore, and invests carefully in extremely valuable books both for economic gain and for the rich, almost sensual, pleasure felt by by the avid book collector.

After a nine year wait, Cliff Janeway returns in this third entry in the series. Readers all across the world who enjoy suspense fiction can hardly believe that Dunning has finally delivered on his intention to write about Janeway again.

Using recently received proceeds of a special book deal, Cliff has traveled to Boston and at auction succeeded in outbidding all other hopefuls for an extremely rare pair of books written by famed explorer Richard Burton. But his pleasure in their acquisition is interrupted when a frail, elderly woman appears at his shop, claiming to be the rightful owner of the books and relating the story of how her grandfather's collection was plundered after his death. The strain of her travel to meet Cliff saps the woman's strength, and as she dies, she extracts a promise from him to trace the rightful trail of ownership.

Cliff's search takes him to Baltimore and then to South Carolina - following the trail of Burton's stay in the US during the 1860's. Since Burton was an actual historical character and since some of his travels in the US remain undocumented, Dunning has an opportunity to imagine for himself and for his readers what the undocumented weeks might have been like. He accomplishes this through a type of hypnotic flashback, a rather lengthy passage which marks almost the exact center of the book.

I enjoyed reading about Cliff Janeway again - and Dunning's own love of old valuable books shines on almost every page. The center passage "filling in the blanks" of Burton's time in the US didn't work very well for me - the first and finishing chapters are the real deal.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM

Book Review: The Bookman's Promise