MR Dixon Disappears

By Ian Sansom

Book Overview

Israel Armstrong, one of literature's most unlikely detectives, returns for more crime solving adventure in this hilarious second novel from 'The Mobile Library' series.

The second in the 'The Mobile Library ' detective series, 'Mr Dixon Disappears' once again features the magnificently hapless Israel Armstrong - the young, Jewish, duffle-coat wearing librarian who solves crimes, mysteries, and domestic problems all whilst driving a mobile library around the coast of Northern Ireland.

Dixon and Pickering's, County Antrim's legendary department store, is preparing to celebrate its centenary. But the elderly Mr Dixon - a member of the Ulster Association of Magicians - has gone missing, along with one hundred thousand pounds in cash. It smells, pretty badly, of a kidnap.

Israel becomes a suspect in the police investigation and is suspended from his job by his boss, the ever-fearsome Linda Wei. He's having to fight to clear his name.

Does Israel's acclaimed five-panel touring exhibition showing the history of Dixon and Pickering's in old photographs and artefacts perhaps hold the key to Mr Dixon's mysterious disappearance? Will romance blossom between Israel and Rosie Hart, the barmaid at the First and Last? Will Linda Wei stick to her diet? And has nobody here heard of Franz Kafka? All will be revealed in this hilarious and endlessly inventive sequel to 'The Case of the Missing Books'.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 000720700X
• ISBN13: 9780007207008
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Another book of the life of the librarian

Another good book of the life of the librarian. It is interesting to read of his mishaps and sometimes unbelievable things that happen to him. (who would agree to live in a chicken coop) I am glad I am not this poor guy. He just keeps plugging along and some how, some way he comes out on top.

The ultimate outsider

This tale of a nice Jewish librarian valiantly trying to be a good librarian in a totally new environment (to him) has both humor and pathos in it. The small community he is trying the serve both likes him and sees him as an outsider. This is the second in the series. Darn good!

Hapless Samson is in the thick of things again--good for us.

Sansom, who lives in Northern Ireland, is a writer and reviewer for the Guardian and the London Review of Books. He is the author of The Impartial Recorder (published in England as the Ring Road), and The Case of the Missing Books, the first in the Mobile Library mysteries. Poor Israel Armstrong arrives early at the Dixon and Pickering store on Easter Saturday and is let in by security guard to set up his exhibit on the history of the store. In inimitable Armstrong style, he of course sets up the display and then backs into a glass display case that crashes into another... you get the picture. The caretaker shows up pale and shocked, and stammers out that they've been robbed-and Mr. Dixon is missing. Once the police arrive they decide that since Israel is there, and his fingerprints are all over everything, he must be guilty. He is interrogated and arrested. He is a wreck of nerves when he is finally bailed out; and he realizes he must find out what happened. The police certainly won't. He has to rely on his old pal Ted and his cab service, unfortunately, as he has been put on suspension and has no access to the library van. Ted and Israel stumble around, and during their investigation they trip across clues that lead them to a solution-of sorts. It seems Mr. Dixon was a member of a local magician's society. How did he make himself and 100,000 pounds in cash disappear? His wife and daughter appear only slightly worried. His son, a shock-jock talk show host on Belfast morning radio, is estranged from his father but inadvertently provides a clue. Sansom has created a zany tale of a careening search through Ireland featuring the somewhat hapless librarian Israel, struggling to survive in an alien land. Armchair Interviews says: A mystery with lots of interesting characters.