The Sign of the Book - A Cliff Janeway "Bookman" Novel

Denver bookman Cliff Janeway would have liked Candice Geiger. She loved books with a true bookwoman's passion. Her collection of first-edition children's books is the best that Janeway ever hopes to see. Sadly, Janeway and Candice Geiger will never meet. She died much too young. Now, twenty years later, her books remain a testament to an extraordinary woman's remarkable vision.

Janeway first learns about the juvenilia collection when Candice's elderly husband, H. R. Geiger, passes away and Janeway travels to their Idaho home to assess the collection. The estate can't be distributed until the books are valued, so there's pressure on Janeway to do the job quickly. But one look at the books tells Janeway something's wrong. Valuable titles are missing, replaced by cheap reprints. Other hugely valuable pieces remain. Why would a thief take one priceless book and leave an equally valuable volume on the shelf?

The answer may lie in Candice's story. The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, she married horse owner and trainer H. R. Geiger at a young age. They traveled the racetrack circuit with some success, as evidenced by winner's-circle photographs -- in which Candice is always a mysterious background figure dressed in white.

Two decades after Candice's strange death, Janeway finds himself deep in a book mystery that may turn out to be much more than a cataloging exercise. It may even involve murder. Candice's daughter, Sharon, may be one of the few people who can help Janeway discover the truth. Sharon has her own Idaho ranch where she takes in sick and injured horses. Janeway worries that her house contains something that could make her very vulnerable: half of her mother's fabulous book collection.

The trail of Candice's shadowy past leads Janeway to California's Golden Gate and Santa Anita racetracks, where he signs on as a racehorse hot walker. A novice at racetrack life, he tries to remain inconspicuous while listening to the chatter among the hands. He doesn't like what he hears. And when he goes to the house where Candice died to look for answers, he finds more than he bargained for.

With its rich mix of books and horses, The Bookwoman's Last Fling is a classic entry in John Dunning's acclaimed Bookman series of suspense novels, sure to bring this superbly talented author even more accolades.

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?

To newspaperman Tom Hastings, his writing matters more than anything. As the book opens, President Harding has just died, and Hastings finds himself drawn toward the biggest story of his career. But his wife resents his allegiance to the newspaper and his Jewish stepfather is a target for the supremacist Kleagles—two good reasons not to persist in his pursuit of the story: that and the KKK has penetrated the highest levels of government in the state.

Some eighty characters surround Tom Hastings: there’s his half-sister, the quiet, passionate Jewess Anna Kohl; David Waldo, a socialist and friend to Jack London; Willie Brown, a rising political star torn between his desire for elective office and the love of his life; and Marvel Millette, a Nellie Bly–like reporter in whom Tom Hastings finally meets his match.

John Dunning creates flesh-and-blood figures, not only of these fictional characters but of historical personages as well. There is John Galen Locke, the Grand Dragon of the KKK, and Fred Bonfils, a founder of a newspaper dynasty built on tabloid sensationalism; President Calvin Coolidge, too, makes a gruff appearance.