by Newell Dunlap.
CHARLES GOODRUM – Dewey Decimated. Crown, hardcover, 1977.
For those who love both books and whodunits, this novel by Charles Goodrum should be required reading. It is the story of two murders, both committed and solved within the confines of Werner-Bok. one of the nation’s most famous libraries.
Things were chaotic enough at Werner-Bok even before the murders — anonymous letters sent to the press had questioned the authenticity of two of the library’s rare manuscripts. But the murder of two staff members on top of this threatens to destroy the library’s reputation.
Not that we know right away the two deaths are· murders (one is made to seem an accident, the other a suicide). But three people begin to suspect murder: Betty Creighton Jones, the public-relations officer; Ed George, a retired librarian and friend of Werner-Bok’ s director; and Steve Carson, a young researcher.
These three amateur detectives join forces and go about hunting clues and questioning suspects. So we have a situation in which not only the sleuths and the murder victims, but all the suspects as well, are associated with the library.
Goodrum, himself an eminent librarian, obviously knows the field as few others do. The library and rare-books information he gives us is interesting, although presented in great quantity for the sake of the information itself rather than advancing the story. But we do get caught up, along with the three amateur sleuths, in trying to puzzle out the murderer’s identity.
Goodrum’s other novel is Carnage of the Realm (1979), which has a numismatic background.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.