The world of antiquarian and second-hand bookdealers seems the sort of mild-mannered place where you’re about as likely to encounter a dancing elephant as you are a felony.
However, as true crime books such as Joe Hone’s The Book Forger, Simon Worrall’s The Poet and the Murderer and the Melissa McCarthy based-on-true-events movie Can You Ever Forgive Me? demonstrate, that’s very far from the case.
True bibliomystery lovers know that when it comes to the strange and secret world of old books, you trulycan't judge a book by it's cover. Often, more is lurking beneath the cozy facade…
Which is where Judi Culbertson’s bibliophile, bookseller, and amateur sleuth Delhi Laine comes in.
Drawing on her own experiences as a dealer in rare books, the New York-based Culbertson creates a series of richly atmospheric mysteries set around the trade in valuable volumes.
They feature an empathetic heroine who’s battling with life’s vicissitudes as well as the villains—Delhi Laine, a woman for whom books are not only a business, but a passion and, sometimes, a lifeline.
A Novel Death
Delhi Laine’s husband, the poetic Colin, has pulled the plug on their marriage leaving her life and her finances in shreds. She’s also still pained by the loss of her two-year-old daughter, Caitlyn, who drowned during a family holiday in England many years earlier.
Trying to pull things together, Delhi focuses on her online book dealing business, Secondhand Prose, dreaming (as all booksellers do) of uncovering something truly valuable—an Emily Dickinson fragment, or a Poe manuscript—that will put her back on track.
Distraction from her troubles comes with news that her friend Maggie, owner of the Old Frigate Bookshop in Port Lewis, has fallen down the stairs and is now in a coma. Delhi steps in to run the shop while her pal recuperates.
She’s only a few days into the new role when Maggie’s assistant Amil is found murdered.
It all seems inexplicable, but when a valuable children’s book arrives in the mail at Delhi’s home and it transpires that Maggie had shipped it shortly before she had her fall, Delhi begins to suspect this rare volume might be the key to fathoming out what is going on in Port Lewis.
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An Illustrated Death
Delhi is back working for herself at Secondhand Prose, trudging around book sales, house clearances, and auctions. Her estranged husband Colin seems to be offering her a second chance, but she’s not sure whether to take it or not
Meanwhile, her daughter’s death continues to tug at her subconscious. The daily grind is interrupted when Delhi receives an unexpected invitation to appraise the library of recently diseased illustrator, Nate Erikson, at his family home in The Hamptons.
When she arrives, Delhi finds the house is not only filled with fabulous books, but also a horde of eccentric relatives. The more time Delhi spends with them, the more she starts to wonder about the circumstances of Nate Erikson’s death.
Her suspicions that murky secrets may lie beneath the apparently idyllic Bohemian façade of the Erikson clan are confirmed when another family member turns up dead.
Digging for the truth behind the crimes will quickly place Delhi herself in grave danger.
A Photographic Death
Delhi’s daughter Caitlyn’s mysterious death in a lake near Stratford-upon-Avon seventeen years earlier provides the focal point for this family-based mystery in which books are put back on the shelf.
While still heartbroken by that catastrophic event, Delhi’s life has moved on. The past is not forgotten, but it has faded. Or at least it has until a letter arrives from England bearing the simple yet ominous message: Your Daughter Did Not Drown.
Delhi is eager to investigate the claim, but the husband Colin and her surviving children are more ambivalent—why open old wounds just because of the intervention of some British crank?
Accompanied by two of her kids, Delhi makes the emotional journey back to Stratford-upon-Avon and into a disquieting past in an attempt to finally get to the bottom of what happened to Caitlyn.
Her painful investigation of the events that occurred that bright summer afternoon will bring her in contact with some very evil people and throw up as many questions as it does answers, not about Delhi’s past, but about her future
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A Bookmarked Death
Following on closely from the previous title in the series, the fourth in Judi Culbertson’s atmospheric series sees Delhi trying to rebuild a normal family life after the dramatic events in England.
Her circumstances are hardly ideal, she’s hemmed in by compromise, yet she has a feeling things may work out. Then an arson fire kills a married couple and her husband, Colin, finds himself named by police as the chief suspect.
In a desperate attempt to hold onto the things she has fought so hard for, Delhi turns detective. Her desperate search for the evidence that will free her husband and put her life back together is filled with menace and tension as she battles against a pair of ruthless and cunning criminals.
Delhi will emerge from it a changed woman with a far clearer vision of the life she wants to lead.
