From Booklist
*Starred Review* When one person dies in a bookshop, it’s sad; although it requires calling in the police, it’s nothing more, especially since the deceased was old. But when two further deaths occur in the same shop within two days, and the coroner can ascertain no cause of death in all three cases, suspicion seems justified. Detective Inspector Dejan Lukic is suspicious and also concerned, since the shop’s coproprietor and he are immediately attracted to one another. He is also sympathetic because he loves books (his collegiate studies were literary; he finally got work with the police, however). Two more die; the possibilities that a killer inspired by Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose or powerful forces (governmental? corporate?) possessing secret, traceless poisons may be responsible are considered; the involvement of a secretive, apocalyptic cult is established; and a green volume entitled The Last Book contains or is the key to the mystery. Serbian master fantasist Živkovic has written what may be the most delicious mystery by a speculative-fiction specialist since Stanislaw Lem’s mind-boggling The Investigation (1974). Unlike Lem’s novel, it is also a discreet, witty love story. --Ray Olson
