Andrew Cartmel’s third volume in The Paperback Sleuth series once again puts the compulsive paperback collector, Cordelia Stanmer, into danger once more.
Erik Make Loud, a rich retired rock star and a World War II enthusiast, hires Cordelia to acquire a “fine” set of “Commando” paperbacks, popular in the 1960s.
Cordelia has leads to the first dozen volumes in the series, but the mythic final volume, Commando Gold, either doesn’t exist…or has been secretly suppressed.
As Cordelia investigates Commando Gold, one lead is murdered. And, of course, the knowledge Cordelia gleans from her sources puts her life at risk, too.
War stories in paperback can be valuable. But Cordelia eventually learns the secrets behind Commando Gold and why it is so scarce. And why her Life is on a Hit List. Who knew collecting paperbacks could be so perilous? GRADE: B+
I can’t tell you how many times third-world assassins have plotted against me as I attempted to buy a used papernback, George. Actually, it’s about as many times as psychotic nymphomaniacs have tried to place strychnine in my Ovaltine every time I click on to your blog. Life can be risky, but worth it.
Jerry, Cordelia’s antics in these books certainly earn her the Paperback Sleuth moniker. LIKE A BULLET ratchets up the menace of paperbacks!
That happens to me all the time too, Jerry! We must be on the same list.
Jeff, I’m hoping someday you’ll publish your memoirs about the dangers of searching for rare paperbacks. I’m sure you can out perform Cordelia’s adventures!
I hope Cordelia has prepared for a comfortable retirement. The end of the mass-market paperback can’t be many years away. If not for the romance genre in its several forms, it would already be extinct, I think. Once new paperbacks no longer appear, how long before shelves in used bookstores start to go empty? Already, paperbacks older than twenty years are becoming fewer and fewer even in larger concerns like Half-Price Books.
Fred, you’re right about the death-spiral of paperback books. Like newspapers, paperbacks will eventually all be digital e-books. Even now, bookstores are slowly disappearing. I buy most of my books online. Half-Price Books will go the way of AMC Theaters…
There are certain mythical volumes that I am looking for too. Why do books get suppressed?
Neeru, in the case of LIKE A BULLET, a crime is involved in the suppression.