The Book Stops Here - (Mobile Library Mystery) by Ian Sansom (Paperback)

About the Book

From the Back Cover

Disgruntled, disheveled, fish-out-of-water mobile librarian Israel Armstrong is finally going home to London, rattling along with his irascible companion Ted Carson in their rust bucket book van en route to the Mobile Meet. The annual library convention gives Israel the opportunity to catch up with his family, eat paprika chicken and baklava, and drink good coffee. But they've barely found parking when the unimaginable occurs: their library-on-wheels is stolen!

Who on earth would want to take a thirty-year-old traveling disaster with the words "The Book Stops Here" painted across the back? Israel and Ted are determined to find out. But their search is leading them on a very twisty trail through the countryside in pursuit of a suspicious convoy of New Age travelers. And the hunt is raising numerous troubling questions--such as where exactly is Israel's high-flying girlfriend, Gloria? And is Ted really making a move on Israel's widowed mother?

Review Quotes

The rewards of Sansom's novel are chiefly tonal . . . Sansom shares Morissey's knack of pushing glumness into camp amusement at its own Eeyore-ish excess." - New York Times Book Review

"One of the most unlikely detectives you'll ever come across." - Daily Express

"Ian Sansom is as expertly comic as his hero is comically inept." - London Times

"Sansom is emphatically unpretentious in his portrayal of the ordinary lives of ordinary folk, and his gentle humor buoys their humdrum lives...pleasing, amusing and honest." - New York Newsday

"appealing" - Kirkus Reviews

"[THE BOOK STOPS HERE] succeeds as a light farce . . . The book's high point is the acerbic portrayal of the personalities making up the Mobile Library Steering Committee, but most every page will elicit a grin, if not a chuckle." - Publishers Weekly

"A humane, big-hearted and sometimes devastatingly funny book." - LA Weekly

"A clever, affectionate poke in the ribs.... Sansom...discovers an exceptionally lively world." - Kirkus Reviews

"Hang around for what promises to be a very enjoyable series." - The Observer

"A work of tender and bonhomous refraction...pleasing, amusing and honest." - Newsday