Reviews

Bestseller Dunning scores another triumph with his fifth mystery (after 2005's The Sign of the Book) to feature Cliff Janeway, a former homicide detective who has found a second career as an antiquarian book dealer but who hasn't quite lost his taste for police work. Janeway receives an invitation from wealthy horse trainer H.R. Geiger to come to Idaho to appraise his book collection, but by the time Janeway arrives, his host is dead. He winds up tracking down some rare volumes that have vanished and probing the decades-old death of Geiger's wife, a wealthy heiress who collected valuable juvenile fiction. When a fresh body turns up and Janeway himself almost falls victim to a killer, the bibliophile detective finds that his decision to pursue the truth puts him at odds with his longstanding significant other. Dunning's exceptional gifts at plotting and characterization should help win him many new readers, while the horse-racing angle is sure to lure Dick Francis fans. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Before becoming a writer, Dunningworked as a groom in Idaho and California. He uses this experience as cop-turned-book-dealer Cliff Janeway leaves Denver to appraise the collection of a recently deceased Idaho horseman. The first editions of classic children's books belonged to H.R. Geiger's late but much younger wife. When H.R.'s daughter reveals suspicions about her mother's death, Cliff goes undercover in the stables to find the killer. Perhaps the weakest of Dunning's excellent series owing to Cliff's frequent confrontations with similarly irritable characters, Bookwoman's Last Fling is nonetheless entertaining for this glimpse into a different environment for the bibliophile detective. The inestimable George Guidall again makes Cliff a pleasantly grumpy hero. Recommended for collections where Dunning is popular.-Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.