This one stands in a class by itself.......Matthew Sullivan's brilliant new mystery, steeped in book love and lore, will make your jaw drop regularly with its twists, turns, stunning revealed secrets and its heartbreaking, bittersweet climax.
Be forewarned: cozy it's not.
As a child, bookseller Lydia Smith somehow survived a horrifying death at the hands of the "Hammerman", an unidentified, elusive assailant who fatally bludgeoned Lydia's friend and her friend's parents during a sleepover. Lydia escaped the Hammerman's sight by hiding under the kitchen sink......but the question remains, did she really escape his notice?
Now a young woman working at Bright Ideas, a busy Denver bookstore, Lydia takes special care of the store's 'Book-Frogs', the lost soul eccentrics who've found a sheltering home in Bright Ideas' nooks and crannies.....
Her world get shaken to its core when Joey, one of the Book-Frogs, a forlorn young ex-convict, commits suicide in the store, bequeathing Lydia a collection of books he's used to create coded messages for her. If that isn't enough of a mystery......the boy dies with a snapshot in his pocket, a long lost childhood photo of Lydia.
Intrigued? So were we. As Lydia and another childhood friend sleuth their way through Joey's tortured backstory, author Sullivan pulls off one twist after another........and the plot's ever tightening web inexorably draws Lydia back into her horrific past.....and that permanent, shadowy figure of her nightmares, the Hammerman, who was never captured.
The BQ couldn't give this one anything less than our highest rating. We tore through it in a day......and its final thrilling reveals, filled with violence and unspeakable tragedy, knocked us silly. Superb writing, swift pace, clever plotting......BQ simply recommends you stop into the Bright Ideas bookstore for one of the best reads of the summer. Easy to rate: 5 stars, (*****), a FIND OF FINDS......
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