SummaryCliff Janeway is back! The Bookman's Promise marks the
eagerly awaited return of Denver bookman-author John
Dunning and the award-winning crime novel series that
helped to turn the nation on to first-edition book
collecting. First, it was Booked to Die, then The Bookman's Wake. Now
John Dunning fans, old and new, will rejoice in The
Bookman's Promise, a richly nuanced new Janeway novel that
juxtaposes past and present as Denver ex-cop and bookman
Cliff Janeway searches for a book and a killer. The quest begins when an old woman, Josephine Gallant,
learns that Janeway has recently bought at auction a signed
first edition by the legendary nineteenth-century explorer
Richard Francis Burton. The book is a true classic, telling
of Burton's journey (disguised as a Muslim) to the
forbidden holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The Boston
auction house was a distinguished and trustworthy firm, but
provenance is sometimes murky and Josephine says the book
is rightfully hers. She believes that her grandfather, who was living in
Baltimore more than eighty years ago, had a fabulous
collection of Burton material, including a handwritten
journal allegedly detailing Burton's undercover trip deep
into the troubled American South in 1860. Josephine
remembers the books from her childhood, but everything
mysteriously disappeared shortly after her grandfather's
death. With little time left in her own life, Josephine begs for
Janeway's promise: he must find her grandfather's
collection. It's a virtually impossible task, Janeway
suspects, as the books will no doubt have been sold and
separated over the years, but how can he say no to a dying
woman? It seems that her grandfather, Charlie Warren, traveled
south with Burton in the spring of 1860, just before the
Civil War began. Was Burton a spy for Britain? What
happened during the three months in Burton's travels for
which there are no records? How did Charlie acquire his
unique collection of Burton books? What will the journal,
if it exists, reveal? When a friend is murdered, possibly because of a Burton
book, Janeway knows he must find the answers. Someone today
is willing to kill to keep the secrets of the past, and
Janeway's search will lead him east: To Baltimore, to a
Pulitzer Prize-winning author with a very stuffed shirt,
and to a pair of unorthodox booksellers. It reaches a fiery
conclusion at Fort Sumter off the coast of Charleston,
South Carolina. What's more, a young lawyer, Erin d'Angelo, and ex-
librarian Koko Bujak, have their own reasons for wanting to
find the journal. But can Janeway trust them? Rich with the insider's information on rare and collectible
books that has made John Dunning famous, and with
meticulously researched detail about a mesmerizing figure
who may have played an unrecognized role in our Civil War,
The Bookman's Promise is riveting entertainment from an
extraordinarily gifted author who is as unique and special
as the books he so clearly loves.
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