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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  cameling | Dec 20, 2009 |  The Bookman's Promise, by John Dunning It's been a long time since Dunning's last book featuring Cliff Janeway, the Denver cop-turned-bookseller. Janeway buys a first edition of one of Richard Burton's books, inscribed to someone not mentioned in any of the biographies. He then receives an unexpected visit from Josephine Gallant, an elderly woman who tells him the person was her grandfather, that he had known Burton during his visit to the United States and had had an entire collection of inscribed firsts. But, with the exception of one which she brings with her, she says, her family had been cheated out of them years earlier by an unscrupulous bookseller, and now she wants Janeway to find them. Shortly thereafter, she dies, and someone else is murdered. Janeway's search, now for a killer as well as books, takes him to Baltimore and Charleston, at Fort Sumter, as he follows the travels of Burton and Charles Warren, in the year before the Civil War. I always enjoy books where a book is the McGuffin, though I would have liked a bit more about rare books and book-selling. That's where Dunning is at his best. And Dunning does know how to tell a story. However, there were some problems with this book. In his search for information about Gallant's ancestor, Janeway encounters Koko Bujak, a retired librarian who has interviewed Gallant for an oral history project. She hypnotized Gallant, and has many tapes of age-regression under hypnosis, with Gallant telling her memories of what her grandfather had said regarding Burton. Unfortunately, there is an assumption made that memory is like a photograph (or recording device), and that hypnosis will recover those memories with 100% accuracy. This is, of course, nonsense. First of all, memory doesn't work like that; scientists in the field have known this for years. And secondly, hypnosis, especially by an untrained person such as Bujak, is fraught with danger. The likelihood of suggestion and confabulation is high. (Which is why courts restrict the testimony of hypnotized witnesses.) Another, related issue that I had with the book is that, in recalling these conversations, which concerned events that had occurred years before, Warren speaks, not in a conversational tone, but in a literary narrative voice. I've noticed that many authors do this, and I find it tremendously irritating. Either write the way someone would have spoken, or write it as a written narrative. There's a subtle theme in this book of friendship and betrayal. At first I thought Dunning should have done more with it, but on reflection I think that his handling of it is right. It would have been too easy to hit the reader over the head. On the whole, an enjoyable mystery. lilithcat | Jun 9, 2009 | This was evidently the third in a series of books about the character "Cliff Janeway". He is a retired policeman who now runs a rare bookshop, and tracks down and purchases books for discriminating buyers. I found the historical part very interesting, and the "diary" part was well written and held my interest. However, this rather academic writing was interrupted with murder, mayhem, mobsters, maiming, etc., which...to me...just didn't fit with the rest of the story. The ending was completely unsatisfying. I won't be looking for any more from this series. (  ) PermaSwooned | Apr 4, 2009 | First published at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/... "The Bookman's Promise" is John Dunning's third novel featuring Cliff Janeway - the Bookman - a book dealer in Denver, and a retired police detective. Dunning introduced Janeway in "Booked to Die" in 1992 and continued the series with "Bookman's Wake" in 1996. Dunning owns (or owned) a rare book store in Denver and writes with authority and passion about the world of rare books. He presents a wealth of interesting trivia about the publishing world and passionate opinions about literature. He also writes well about Denver and the Rocky Mountain area. This give his novels great texture, it carried his first two Bookman novels past some significant weaknesses. Dunning seems to be vague on police procedure, and his dialogue tends to sound like a bad movie from the 1940's. Janeway is not convincing as a retired tough cop, even as a bibliophile. In "The Bookman's Promise" Janeway travels to Baltimore and Charleston in search of rare first editions of books by Victorian explorer and adventurer Sir Richard Burton, and an unpublished private journal of Burton's visit to the United States on the eve of the civil war. Unfortunately, this simply gives Dunning an excuse to try to write about stereotyped Southern families with dark secrets running down several generations. While Dunning has a few good scenes, generally connected to authors, books, and publishing, this book tends to ramble and limp along. It is worth reading for what Dunning can teach about those topics, but it's not a particularly good novel of mystery or suspense. The earlier novels in the series were much stronger, although some of the same writing weaknesses appear. (  ) BraveKelso | Oct 26, 2008 | Cliff Janeway is not a traditional mystery or action hero. These books do have action. This is good entertainment for a bibliophile. (  ) erniepratt | Sep 23, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0743476298, Mass Market Paperback)Cliff Janeway is back! The Bookman's Promise marks the eagerly awaited return of Denver bookman-author John Dunning and the award-winning crime novel series that helped to turn the nation on to first-edition book collecting.First, it was Booked to Die, then The Bookman's Wake. Now John Dunning fans, old and new, will rejoice in The Bookman's Promise, a richly nuanced new Janeway novel that juxtaposes past and present as Denver ex-cop and bookman Cliff Janeway searches for a book and a killer. The quest begins when an old woman, Josephine Gallant, learns that Janeway has recently bought at auction a signed first edition by the legendary nineteenth-century explorer Richard Francis Burton. The book is a true classic, telling of Burton's journey (disguised as a Muslim) to the forbidden holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The Boston auction house was a distinguished and trustworthy firm, but provenance is sometimes murky and Josephine says the book is rightfully hers. She believes that her grandfather, who was living in Baltimore more than eighty years ago, had a fabulous collection of Burton material, including a handwritten journal allegedly detailing Burton's undercover trip deep into the troubled American South in 1860. Josephine remembers the books from her childhood, but everything mysteriously disappeared shortly after her grandfather's death. With little time left in her own life, Josephine begs for Janeway's promise: he must find her grandfather's collection. It's a virtually impossible task, Janeway suspects, as the books will no doubt have been sold and separated over the years, but how can he say no to a dying woman? It seems that her grandfather, Charlie Warren, traveled south with Burton in the spring of 1860, just before the Civil War began. Was Burton a spy for Britain? What happened during the three months in Burton's travels for which there are no records? How did Charlie acquire his unique collection of Burton books? What will the journal, if it exists, reveal? When a friend is murdered, possibly because of a Burton book, Janeway knows he must find the answers. Someone today is willing to kill to keep the secrets of the past, and Janeway's search will lead him east: To Baltimore, to a Pulitzer Prize-winning author with a very stuffed shirt, and to a pair of unorthodox booksellers. It reaches a fiery conclusion at Fort Sumter off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. What's more, a young lawyer, Erin d'Angelo, and ex-librarian Koko Bujak, have their own reasons for wanting to find the journal. But can Janeway trust them? Rich with the insider's information on rare and collectible books that has made John Dunning famous, and with meticulously researched detail about a mesmerizing figure who may have played an unrecognized role in our Civil War, The Bookman's Promise is riveting entertainment from an extraordinarily gifted author who is as unique and special as the books he so clearly loves. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:58 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Interesting twists in the plot keeps the pace moving along nicely and the conclusion is a nice surprise. (