"The Bookman's Promise" is John Dunning's third novel featuring Cliff Janeway - the Bookman - a book dealer in Denver, and a retired police detective. Dunning introduced Janeway in "Booked to Die" in 1992 and continued the series with "Bookman's Wake" in 1996.
Dunning owns (or owned) a rare book store in Denver and writes with authority and passion about the world of rare books. He presents a wealth of interesting trivia about the publishing world and passionate opinions about literature. He also writes well about Denver and the Rocky Mountain area. This give his novels great texture, it carried his first two Bookman novels past some significant weaknesses. Dunning seems to be vague on police procedure, and his dialogue tends to sound like a bad movie from the 1940's. Janeway is not convincing as a retired tough cop, even as a bibliophile.
In "The Bookman's Promise" Janeway travels to Baltimore and Charleston in search of rare first editions of books by Victorian explorer and adventurer Sir Richard Burton, and an unpublished private journal of Burton's visit to the United States on the eve of the civil war. Unfortunately, this simply gives Dunning an excuse to try to write about stereotyped Southern families with dark secrets running down several generations.
While Dunning has a few good scenes, generally connected to authors, books, and publishing, this book tends to ramble and limp along. It is worth reading for what Dunning can teach about those topics, but it's not a particularly good novel of mystery or suspense. The earlier novels in the series were much stronger, although some of the same writing weaknesses appear.
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