The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery (The Mobile Library Mystery Series, 4)

by Ian Sansom

Book Overview

"[Israel's] fish-out-of-water dilemmas and encounters with kooky locals will resonate with Alexander McCall Smith fans." --Publishers Weekly Author Ian Sansom "clearly loves a good laugh" (Washington... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061452017
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 2.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Gloria Eat Your Heart Out

The best part of this series of very funny mysteries-without-murder is how the characters really blossom over time so that over time Sansom challenges every stereotype in your head, while reinforcing them at the same time. Israel, the only Jewish vegetarian mobile librarian in Northern Ireland, bumbles through another human mystery. And it's a laugh a minute despite dealing with scandal, death, funerals, refugees, and censorship. And there's always Ted, the man with the unnatural love for the mobile library's van. If you haven't read a Mobile Library mystery yet, buy 'em all and start at the beginning. Soon, you may join me in checking weekly for word of the next book. And if you have read the rest of the series, there's news of Gloria in this one that you won't wanna miss.

Leopold Bloom drives North

A mobile librarian in Northernmost Northern Ireland, who is Jewish and English, allows a fourteen year old daughter of a local politician to borrow Roth's American Pastoral and is accused of corrupting her mind and abducting her. That's about as much sex and suspense as you'll get. This isn't going to make you bite your nail and turn the pages wondering what will happen next, but turning the pages is well worth it for the humor and local color. The scenery and religion and atmosphere of Ulster are vividly brought to life. It's got a lot of parallels with the American Bible belt. There isn't a catholic in sight. The local Presbyterian minister is suspected of being too liberal.

terrific satire

Mobile librarian Israel Armstrong reaches Tumdrum, in Northern Ireland to allow locals to borrow books. The next day, Israel is open for business thanks to his coop mate Ted's nagging. Fourteen year old Lyndsay Morris borrows an adult only Roth's American Pastoral that she knows her parents especially her politically ambitious father Maurice would ban from their home. When Lyndsay disappears, the local cops and the media believe Israel abducted her. Library director Linda Wei holds Israel culpable for lending a bad book to a child. Tabloid journalist Veronica threatens to turn him into red meat for a pack of rapid reporters and Maurice goes after him as a tool to regain his lost political seat. His traveling partner in the chicken coop Ted throws him out into the cold suggesting he get to work. If you seek a strong amateur sleuth, don't bother with the Bad Book Affair as the whodunit investigation is at best a modest proposal. However, if you seek a terrific satire that skewers the lofty affectations and posturing of political, media, and religious leaders by lampooning their holier than thou prejudices and sham social issues (for instance ban the book), than The Book Stops Here. Fans who enjoy a wild witty swift impaling of the self-aggrandizing will want to read the latest adventures of the innocent Israel. Harriet Klausner