Death of a Bookseller (British Library Crime Classics) Paperback – March 7, 2023

Definitely not easy to guess the outcome or whodoneit. Deceptively gentle pace but completely hooks you in. Not the usual crime clsssic.

This book gives a fascinating picture of the business of buying and selling rare books in the 1950s.The protagonist is Sergeant Jack Wigan, an amiable, honest police who befriends a bookseller. Michael Fisk has an enviable collection of antiquarian books. He inspires Wigam to start collecting books for a hobby. One day Fisk is found stabbed to death in his home. Evidence suggests he was murdered while trying to raise the devil with the aid of a book on demonology!The Black Arts figure in the plot, although Wigan, a churchgoing man, does not approve making use of them. The plot revolves around Wigan’s efforts to save Fred Hampton from hanging for the murder. Hampton is a humble book runner, and Wigan is sure he’s innocent.The story is peopled with eccentric characters from a good-natured barrow-boy to a titled psychic expert. Wigan finds kind-hearted men in the book trade to help with his investigation, which his bosses will only allow him to pursue in his spare time.The author was a policeman for seven year before turning novelist. His knowledge of police methods adds authenticity to the narrative. The introduction gives some interesting biographical details on Bernard Farmer and compares him to George Bellairs. I find Bellairs a more sophisticated writer but still, this is a very good read.

At the end of a long shift,Sergeant Wigan escorts a drunk man home. Mike Fisk, a trader in rare books, invites Wigan in to see his collection rare books. A friendship develops between the two, leading Wigan into beginning his own book collection. But then Mike is found murdered, and one of his extremely rare books is missing. Because of his knowledge of the book trade Wigan is seconded to C.I.D. to assist in the investigation into Fisk’s death. Wigan finds himself delving deep into the rare book trade “where avid agents will gladly cut you for a first edition and then offer you a lift home afterwards.” The evidence he finds points to another collector, one not well liked in the trade. Detective Inspector J. Saggs is convinced they have found their murderer and succeeds in getting a conviction. But Wigan has his doubts.“Wigan, are you counsel for the defence?”“No, sir, I’m only interested in justice being done.”“It will be done. It’s my duty to screw the chap down and I will screw him down.”Farmer’s plot is an unusual mashup of police procedural, thriller, and gothic horror story. What starts out by following Wigan and the murder investigation, turns into a race to save a man from being falsely convicted and hung, the takes a long diversion into the occult. Wigan, is a very likable character. A hard-working beat policeman with a strong sense of justice, kindhearted and honest to a fault. He’s also very down-to earth. Farmer spends a large part of the plot focusing not only on the collecting of rare occult books, but discussion on raising demons as well. It’s a thread that runs throughout the remainder of the story, and is a bit jarring at points. Wigan, a likable hard-working beat policeman with a strong sense of justice, is also very down-to earth. His prosaic sentiments did not mesh at all with the occult theme. At times it also became difficult to tease the police and the supernatural investigations apart. It all just resulted in a rather odd narrativeFarmer’s writing style was also a bit off, in that it felt extremely simplistic, and at times flat in tone. This made it a bit difficult at the beginning to actually get into the story. I found myself stopping and putting the book aside many times times. But I did pick it back up and ultimately I’m glad that I persevered.Death of a Bookseller is not the best thing I’ve read from the BLCC. To be perfectly honest this is definitely not a great mystery novel in terms of plotting or writing. But it does have an appealing character in the form of Wigan. And the peek into the world of the rare book trade made for an interesting diversion.

A very engaging story line as well as the cast of characters.The story was unique as it involved rare books and book collectors. Passions of the "collectors" collide. Good luck finding the guilty one in a cast of characters who are each guilty of something.

The topic, the atmosphere--what's not to like? But the writing is oddly flat. Short sentences, something missing somehow. I read all the British Crime Classics, and it's a shame that this beautiful volume, chosen as the 100th classic mystery re-published, doesn't live up to the standard. The cover illustration, the gold back cover, all perfect. The plot is no better or worse than many. But somehow it just falls flat. Maybe former police officers don't make the best fiction writers.

i like this book very much. prompt delivery too

It is an interesting mystery novel. I enjoyed the historical context and the simple way it was written. The plot is a little convoluted.. and there are many characters.

Published in 1956 and feels kind of out of place. Do bibliophiles really act like low level criminals? Ruth Brent working for an American collector carries a knife in her bag and cheerfully slashes face of a person who would not sell her a book at her price and gets away with it. While Fredrick Hampton gets caught in a murder of a collector, who later is shown as an avid demonologies. Sgt. Wigan investigates in his off hours.Detective books published in 30s and 40s, the golden age, shone like bright stars. This one starts off hesitantly, shows a it of life after the first third and then almost gets lost. Characters, such as Sir Manson Wood, an expert of the psychic world, comes and leaves, with no consequence.Too many people, obnoxious characters, and poor Wigan getting hell from his superiors, at one point it becomes almost hilarious (for the readers) .The writing is good, the mystery is so so, the characters all rummy.Oh for a Carr, Queen or Christie!

Really fifties feel. Justice done in the end. Insights into the book trade. Some of the procedures a bit off but this is what is so charming about the fifties.

Set in 1954 and published in 1956 this is the second of four detective novels that Farmer wrote featuring his series detective, the policeman, Jack Wigan, On the basis of this I will not be seeking out the others.One might expect that because Farmer had been a policeman and was also a book collector that the novel might be informed by his expertise in both areas. But his descriptions of the book trade and police work are, apart from some sparse and dry observations about organisation and administrative detail, unconvincing. In particular, Farmer’s depiction of the antiquarian book trade as a kind of hive of low level gangsterism is an obvious travesty and a cheap ploy. (Perhaps he believed that readers would otherwise be uninterested in it.)In his introduction Martin Edwards compares the book to the race against time thrillers of Cornell Woolrich (Cornell Hopley-Woolrich, a near contemporary of Hammett, and who also wrote as William Irish and George Copley) and the mysteries of George Bellairs. As to the first point, the book begins as a police procedural and then does develop into a clock-race thriller – will Wigan discover the truth in time to save the man he believes to have been wrongly convicted from the noose? However, there is not much tension generated in the second half and its pulp related features are sporadic and contrived. The pace remains rather pedestrian throughout, even though Wigan suffers from progressively intensified hand-wringing. As to the second comparison, Edwards calls the literary style of the book ‘gently humorous’, but I do not see this at all, unless Edwards means by this that it not to be taken seriously.Edwards does note that Farmer wrote a considerable amount of fiction aimed at children and young adults, and that he had a particular interest in the work of GA Henty, the most popular English ‘boy’s author’ – ie writer of juvenile adventure fiction - of the late nineteenth century. (Some of Henty’s books are mentioned several times in passing in the story here).Wigan has many of the characteristics of a Henty hero. He is intelligent (but not overly so), resourceful, conscientious, loyal, undeviatingly honest and upright, straightforward, slightly priggish, and modest. One might call him, in the bygone idiom of Biggles and Co, a ‘stout chap’.The Henty influence shows elsewhere too. While the book is clearly written for adult consumption, its style and structure are very reminiscent of much juvenile fiction. The prose is simple and direct. Characters, apart from the hero, are cartoonish, behave capriciously towards each other and their actions generally seem largely driven by the exigencies of the plot and are often not logical. The plot itself lurches from one fanciful incident to the next. (Does Farmer really expect the reader to believe that someone who, completely unprovoked, slashes another across the face with a razor in a public restaurant would be let off by a magistrate the following day with a fine, or that Wigan, the unlikely sole beneficiary of a murder victim’s will would be allowed to participate in the investigation of the case?)One review I have read describes the book as reading ‘as though it had been plotted and written by a committee of teenagers’. This is an accurate description, and one could add, at the risk of over-elaborating a simple and well-put point, ‘teenagers with diverse literary interests, all crudely assimilated and all of which must be accommodated in the story’.The resolution is a Hey Presto affair. The murderer, who might be anyone as far as Wigan (or the reader) is concerned, reveals themself when they obligingly fall into a speculative trap devised not by Wigan but a by a secondary character. The murderer’s identity and motivation cannot be guessed by anything related in the story to this point. These things are explained by details, fairly ridiculous ones, revealed post hoc.There is a happy ending – if one is prepared to ignore a few deaths on the way – or at least an ending that is meant to be morally edifying. The virtuous and those who repent of their errant ways are rewarded. The morally innocent are cared for. The guilty are punished. Those who do not survive the story presumably get their rightful desserts in the hereafter. So Wigan would at any rate believe.Bah.

I bought this for my husband who's a big fan of classic whodunnits. His verdict: very dated but readable. So, no wow factor and he wouldn't read any more books by Farmer. True whodunnits are badly (and undeservedly) out of fashion now and this one doesn't do much to inspire a new readership, sadly. So it goes.

Excellent mystery thriller worth keeping to read again.