Death of a Bookseller: the instant Sunday Times bestseller! The debut suspense thriller of 2023 that you don't want to miss!

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It is a bit of a slow-burn, but the creeping uncertainty that pervades every inch of both Laura and Roach’s POV really brought a sense of depth and realism to their characters, and the cat and mouse game that unfolds between them. For a while there I wasn’t sure how things would end but I couldn’t look away from the cringey disaster that began hurtling towards us as both their lives (and obsessions) began spiralling out of control. When Sergeant Wigan stops to escort a swaying reveler home at the end of his late shift, he is spun a tale of the ups and downs of a life spent collecting and selling rare books. His new companion, Michael Fisk, has been celebrating the acquisition of a signed copy of Keats’ Endymion, and a trip into Fisk’s library is enough to convince Wigan to begin his own collection. After developing a love for antiquarian books and a friendship with Fisk, Wigan is called upon by the C.I.D. when tragedy strikes and Fisk is found murdered in his library.

Slater gave the reader a real power here in diving deep into each character's thought process and showing how they felt about each other. This was such a clever writing style because it alienated us further from Roach and began to do the same for Laura as we saw her character shift and change until she and Roach didn't feel so different after all. I felt physically uncomfortable at times reading from Roach's perspective whereas I just gradually started to dislike Laura.Overall, a very self-aware novel with vivid characters and an interesting take on true crime as a genre - I would highly recommend getting this on your 'to be read' list for next year! Originally published in 1956 this book has been issued again as part of the British Library Crime Classics series. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a classic mystery, especially if you are happy to accept that in 1956 people viewed many major issues differently than we do today. Eventually someone is accused, tried, and found guilty of the murder, but Wigan is sure they have got the wrong man. Since the penalty for murder was then death by hanging he only has a limited time to find the real murderer. There are many suspects and much intrigue. The world of buying and selling books was apparently fraught with danger as large sums of cash traded hands.

I gave 3 stars because Wigan is a pleasant main role character and the mystery, on the whole, is interesting since there are several suspicious characters and until the end you can't guess who really could be the murderer. I've never read a book that's made me feel skin-crawlingly gross yet fascinated. I couldn't put this book down, it captivated me from the off with its car-crash characters, bookshop setting and obsessive plot. At the end of the book, Roach gets away with everything. Nothing happens to her. And Laura? The victim? She is seen as the person who went crazy and caused all this drama. That everything was always in her head. I have never hated a book from beggining, middle, end, as much as I did this one.The story explores the danger of our fascination with true crime and as a person who only really reads thrillers and listens to true crime Podcasts, it made me take a pause and think about whether I am too drawn to these areas and whether I need to explore other areas of interest. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Laura, even her name exudes sighs of happiness, and sun-drenched blondness - a Pumpkin Spice Girl if there ever was one, now works at the same chain bookstore as Roach. This is a strange tale, something in between a police procedural and a gothic story. It starts with a humble police sergeant developing an interest in rare books after striking up an unlikely friendship with a book dealer. When Sergeant Wigan's friend is found murdered, he is asked to help with the investigation. He meets several strange characters from the fringes of the rare book dealing world and begins to appreciate how ruthless book collectors can be. When the police arrest a suspect, St Wigan feels that they caught the wrong man. So he continues his own investigation among the bookdealers of London.

Purple haired and fascinated by virtually anything macabre, serial-killer fanatic Roach is quite possibly one of the (very few) characters to ever make me feel soo uncomfortable.

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Also, though it is nice that the detective in question finds external collaborators...well, there are some chapters where the protagonist does nothing or almost nothing and it is the others who carry out the real detective work. While this book was mainly about the complex relationship between Laura & Roach, it also explores the implications of true crime books & podcasts on real life victims & survivors. I'm quite partial to a true crime podcast & this really made me rethink how I consume this type of media. This theme added depth to the story & made this book really stand out as something a bit different. When Laura joins the book store staff, she knows right away that something is off about Roach. But Roach can tell something is off about the pretty, perfect Laura as well. These two are destined to be besties.

I love how uncomfortable this book made me. Roach's obsession with serial killers. When looked at it through Laura's eyes, it's unsettling. Even though I do like True Crime, I'm more in the vein of using as an educational guide to stay alive, not the fascination with the murderer themselves. I'm much more drawn to missing - but I loved the uncomfortable struggle of Roach's POV and her spiraling. It was interesting to have someone dislikeable as the main character. Protagonists are usually nice and likeable and familiar, but Roach was none of those things. She’s unashamedly wrong. But yet we still root for her. You’ll find yourself rooting both for her and against her.I wonder if serial killers think about me as much as I think about them.” I didn’t realize the actual shirt exists. Go to Etsy. It does! 😂 First published in 1956 it’s no surprise that some would find it ‘dated’. I happen to love ‘dated’, the language especially. According to Martin Edwards in the Introduction to this reprint, original copies of the novel are much sought after and the story has cult status among book lovers. Surely that can only be because of the huge amounts of information on book collecting, bookselling and arcane books which it contains, since it could hardly be said to have appeal for lovers of stylish writing, tight plotting and solid detective investigation. This was a deliciously dark crime novel intertwining true crime with bookselling. I personally think that this executed bookselling PERFECTLY and it was such a joy to read a book that spoke about it so well and accurately, as well as hilariously. Along side this, the discussions of true crime and the obsessiveness of some that consume it was incredibly fascinating and seeing how it completely took a tole on Roach and every aspect of her career and life, was something I had never read before and would now, be intrigued to branch more into.