Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Sullivan, Matthew. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. New York: Schribner 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

Lydia heard the distant flap of paper wings as the first book fell from its shelf.

She glanced up from the register, head tilted, and imagined that a sparrow had flown through an open window again and was circling the store's airy upper floors, trying to find its way out. A few second later another book fell. This time it thudded more than flapped, and she was sure it wasn't a bird. 

 

Description:

Maybe the initial set-up for Matthew Sullivan's Midnight at The Bright Ideas Bookstore
is a little familiar. Lydia Smith, a young, shy woman, works in a bookstore where she encounters eccentric regulars and embraces a quiet life of books.

She loved roaming the stacks when it was early and empty like this, feeling the quiet hopeful promise of all those waiting books. 

But her sedate life changes in the opening pages when, during a gathering at her place of employment, The Bright Ideas Bookstore. One of the lonely, solitary "BookFrog" regulars, Joey, kills himself on an upper level of the store. He has left a note bequeathing Lydia a box of oddities, including some ragged books, curiously defaced on random pages. Could it be some kind of message?

OK, maybe you now think it's just a murder mystery. But it soon becomes a lot more layered. As Lydia and her friend Raj (and the police) explore Joey's suicide and those mysterious books, Lydia begins to reflect on her early childhood and remembers a shocking event she had once witnessed. Somehow, she grows to feel that event might relate to Joey's death. 

Her digging also leads her back into a reluctant contact her long-estranged father, once a fellow book-lover himself who became a prison guard to support Lydia and his family.

You leave yourself open to answers, he'd always taught her. You keep turning pages, you finish chapters, you find the next book. You seek and you seek and you seek, and no matter how tough things become, you never settle.

There's a lot of plot, personalities, and histories in Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, plenty to keep you turning pages wondering what direction Lydia's search will lead and who will become involved. And, of course, there is the background setting of a bookstore and its customers to keep readers like me happy.

It's a great mystery told by a skilled author, Matthew Sullivan. I loved its premise and ongoing unpredictability of people and events. Highly recommended for lovers of books, mysteries, and characterizations.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Dunning, John. Booked to Die.   

Cliff Janeway, former Denver detective who is beginning a new career as a rare book dealer, is reluctantly pulled into the death of one of his book scouts. Highly recommended for its high quality writing, plot, characters, and fascinating descriptions about the world of rare books (previously reviewed here)