(courtesy Penguin Books Australia)
If you are a reader, and let’s face it, if you’re reading this review, you probably are, then you will have conducted a lifelong love affair with their source – bookshops (not libraries, in this instance, though they are, of course, also quite wonderful).
There is something infinitely calming about being in a bookshop, whether it’s a small independent outfit or a larger more behemoth-style entity (not all are bad; one of my favourites is the flagship store of a national chain here in Australia) which immediately settles the mind, dials down frazzled nerves and sets the world to right again.
Naturally there’s also the endorphin rush of buying a reasonable number of books (the exact number depends on the needs of the day but at least two, maybe four and perhaps eight or more) but perhaps the greatest thrill comes when you come to know the booksellers themselves and the bookshops morphs from all the good things above (all still intact, worry not) into a place where you feel like family.
That is Peak Bookshop, and it’s all through the third book in The Bookshop Detectives series, Murder and Mojitos, which like its hugely readable predecessors, Dead Girl Gone and Tea and Cake and Death centres on the cosy bookshop of Sherlock Tomes, run by Garth and Eloise, two ex-British coppers in New Zealand’s Havelock North on Hawke Bay on the east coast of the North Island.
Working with them are three women who are more like family than employees – Amelia, Phyllis and Kitty – who have their quirks but who are undeniably the heart and soul of the shop and of Garth and Eloise’s world which also includes their scarred but lovably afraid dog Stevie.
‘People change.’ Paula smiles and this time it goes all the way to her tired eyes. ‘Look at you, you silly cow with your bookshop and your pink hair.’
‘Do you think Pinter’s changed?’ asks Eloise.
‘Yeah, I do.’ Paula takes another long drag on her cigarette. ‘I think he’s more dangerous.’
On the strength of that cast of characters and warm hug of a setting alone you should pick up The Bookshop Detectives novels.
But wait, there’s more! Running through their tales of stock orders coming in, hilariously oddball but wonderful customers (mostly, thankfully) and big community events being supported and famous authors becoming something like family rather than promotional literary ships in the night, there is, and what kind of cosy crime output would be without this, murders.
While Murder and Mojitos, like those novels before it, has a suitably quirky title, the kind to make you up the book because oh my lord what a combination, it backs that up with some seriously intense storytelling.
Tucked within all the warm and happy moments with customers like Bernard and the Admiral, and pop-ins by authors and friends like Prunella, whose larger-than-life goth persona scares the buoyant fun out of Amelia, is the threat of Arthur Pinter, a literary-obsessed serial killer who once took Eloise captive, her rescue only coming at the hands of a determined Garth who bend the rules to find and save the woman he loves.
After that kind of trauma, retiring from the force and escaping to New Zealand seemed like a wholly sensible move, but as the third novel opens, Pinter’s malevolent shadow still hangs over the bookshop, with the very strong possibility he might still have the ability to shake their lives to their very foundations.
Photo credit: (c) Gareth and Louise Ward via Penguin Books Australia
Lending real truthfulness and grit, and quite a lot of affection for the book trade, are the authors, ex-British police people and actual bookshop owners, Gareth and Louise Ward, whose joint writing style is a marvellous mix of whimsy and fun, of idiosyncratic characters and silly moments whose sit cheek-by-jowl with real peril and fear, while somehow managed not to be cannibalised or diminished by the other.
It’s a tricky juggling act but such is the immersively cosy and very real world the authors have conjured up that at no point does Murder and Mojitos ever feel like it’s trying to have an ungainly foot in each genre camp.
The fact that the world of Sherlock Tomes and the town that surrounds it (real by the way) is so affectionately and fully drawn, and the lives they lead are so masterfully realised and told, means that no matter how dark and unsettling some of the plot lines may get, we always have our North Star of the bookshop and the found family which inhabits it to return to.
And that matters more than ever in Murder and Mojitos which may involve the friendly rivalry of an intra-shop cocktail creation competition for an Art Deco Festival event featuring Cuba’s queen of crime fiction, Juana Huerra, and traffic cone placement n various township rooftops, but which also involves Pinter’s hand falling ever more heavily on Garth and Eloise’s new life.
The smell. I pick out a clean scent undercut with pine. The man, tall and straight, the arrogant raise of a hand to someone he was confident would be watching him. It’s all so familiar I want to vomit. He was here. I see swirls of colour, dark eyes, a raised hand.
I fall.
Quite how heavily must be left to the reading of Murder and Mojitos but suffice to say that while books one and two explored what Pinter may have done in the past and the resulting trauma he inflicted, the new instalment goes all in, serving up a horror list of crime committed, conspiracies indulged in and life damage done.
It all comes down to how well Garth and Eloise, and old police friends in the UK like Paula, and customers who know more than they are letting on, like the Admiral, can work out what Pinter is up to and what he might do next.
Guess correctly and their perfectly formed world of a small town bookshop, employees and customers as family, adorable dog Stevie and singular presence in local community life remains gloriously intact; guess wrong, however, and it might all come tumbling down at the hands of a sociopath who thinks nothing of killing and maiming with deadly, cold intent.
So, no pressure then?
Oh, there’s pressure, alright, but happily for us, and for all of the wonderful characters in the joy and tension that is Murder and Mojitos, also a lot of love, laughter and family, and it’s this heartwarming, if emotionally hefty and grounded, mix of lighthearted quirk and deadly reality that makes The Bookshop Detectives such a joy and a delight to read and ensures there is a great deal of anticipation for further additions to the roster, which it is hinted at, may well stand a chance of coming to a bookshop near you, sooner rather than later.