The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery (Mobile Library Mysteries) [Paperback]

Ian Sansom (Author)

Book Description

Series: Mobile Library Mysteries | Publication Date: January 19, 2010

Israel Armstrong—the hapless duffle coat wearing, navel-gazing librarian who solves crimes and domestic problems whilst driving a mobile library around the north coast of Ireland—finds himself on the brink of thirty. But any celebration, planned or otherwise, must be put on hold when a troubled teenager—the daughter of a local politician—mysteriously vanishes. Israel suspects the girl's disappearance has something to do with his lending her American Pastoral from the library's special "Unshelved" category. Now he has to find the lost teen before he's run out of town—while he attempts to recover from his recent breakup with his girlfriend, Gloria, and tries to figure out where in Tumdrum a Jewish vegetarian might celebrate his thirtieth birthday.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Sansom's satiric fourth mobile library mystery (after 2008's The Book Stops Here), Israel Armstrong, an English Jewish vegetarian mobile librarian and amateur sleuth, embarks on yet another bumblingly endearing case in Tumdrum, on the northernmost coast of the north of the north of Northern Ireland. The day after Israel allows 14-year-old Lyndsay Morris to borrow a bad book (i.e., Philip Roth's American Pastoral), Lyndsay, daughter of prominent Unionist candidate Maurice Morris, disappears. The coincidence is enough to make Israel suspect in the eyes of his boss, Linda Wei, a lesbian Chinese single mother, as well as the police and a nosy newspaper reporter. Never mind the thin plot and minimal detection. Sansom uses the naïve Israel to poke fun at politics, religion, prejudice, and pretensions of all sorts. Readers will particularly enjoy the passages devoted to the efforts to keep books like American Pastoral out of the hands of the young and impressionable. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Israel Armstrong, the English, Jewish, vegetarian mobile librarian, is back for his fourth despondent slog (after The Book Stops Here, 2008) through the north of Northern Ireland. He’s as out of his element as ever—he’d hoped for a brownstone in Brooklyn and breakfast with Paul Auster—and the mystery is as incidental to the craic as ever, too. This time, Israel’s lending of a book from “The Unshelved,” a selection of under-the-counter books that includes both Philip Roth’s American Pastoral and Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, makes him a suspect in the disappearance of the borrower, the daughter of a redemption-seeking political candidate. A reluctant Israel investigates only to clear his name, with colleague and comic foil Ted Carson—the two are surely one of the genre’s great comedy teams—doing the driving. But what’s different this time is that Israel’s ongoing existential crisis, while played for laughs, isn’t only played for laughs. The death of a dear friend forces Israel into meaningful introspection, and Sansom offers genuinely affecting scenes of aging, death, and grief that make his still-generous humor all the more sweet. Though this series hasn’t always lived up to its terrific potential, The Bad Book Affair augurs very well for the future. --Keir Graff

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Product Details

• Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Original edition (January 19, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061452017
• ISBN-13: 978-0061452017
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,037,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gloria Eat Your Heart Out, February 6, 2010

By 

J. Nichols (Oakland CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery (Mobile Library Mysteries) (Paperback)

The best part of this series of very funny mysteries-without-murder is how the characters really blossom over time so that over time Sansom challenges every stereotype in your head, while reinforcing them at the same time. Israel, the only Jewish vegetarian mobile librarian in Northern Ireland, bumbles through another human mystery. And it's a laugh a minute despite dealing with scandal, death, funerals, refugees, and censorship.

And there's always Ted, the man with the unnatural love for the mobile library's van.

If you haven't read a Mobile Library mystery yet, buy 'em all and start at the beginning. Soon, you may join me in checking weekly for word of the next book.

And if you have read the rest of the series, there's news of Gloria in this one that you won't wanna miss.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars terrific satire, January 22, 2010

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Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery (Mobile Library Mysteries) (Paperback)

Mobile librarian Israel Armstrong reaches Tumdrum, in Northern Ireland to allow locals to borrow books. The next day, Israel is open for business thanks to his coop mate Ted's nagging. Fourteen year old Lyndsay Morris borrows an adult only Roth's American Pastoral that she knows her parents especially her politically ambitious father Maurice would ban from their home.

When Lyndsay disappears, the local cops and the media believe Israel abducted her. Library director Linda Wei holds Israel culpable for lending a bad book to a child. Tabloid journalist Veronica threatens to turn him into red meat for a pack of rapid reporters and Maurice goes after him as a tool to regain his lost political seat. His traveling partner in the chicken coop Ted throws him out into the cold suggesting he get to work.

If you seek a strong amateur sleuth, don't bother with the Bad Book Affair as the whodunit investigation is at best a modest proposal. However, if you seek a terrific satire that skewers the lofty affectations and posturing of political, media, and religious leaders by lampooning their holier than thou prejudices and sham social issues (for instance ban the book), than The Book Stops Here. Fans who enjoy a wild witty swift impaling of the self-aggrandizing will want to read the latest adventures of the innocent Israel.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leopold Bloom drives North, February 6, 2010

By 

D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery (Mobile Library Mysteries) (Paperback)

A mobile librarian in Northernmost Northern Ireland, who is Jewish and English, allows a fourteen year old daughter of a local politician to borrow Roth's American Pastoral and is accused of corrupting her mind and abducting her. That's about as much sex and suspense as you'll get. This isn't going to make you bite your nail and turn the pages wondering what will happen next, but turning the pages is well worth it for the humor and local color. The scenery and religion and atmosphere of Ulster are vividly brought to life. It's got a lot of parallels with the American Bible belt. There isn't a catholic in sight. The local Presbyterian minister is suspected of being too liberal.