Death of a bookseller

Title:

Author:

Summary:

Roach would rather be listening to the latest episode of her favorite true crime podcast than assisting the boring and predictable customers at her local branch of the bookstore Spines, where she’s worked her entire adult life. A serious true crime junkie, Roach looks down her nose at the pumpkin-spice-latte-drinking casual fans who only became interested in the genre once it got trendy. But when Laura, a pretty and charismatic children’s bookseller, arrives to help rejuvenate the struggling bookstore branch, Roach recognizes in her an unexpected kindred spirit. Despite their common interest in true crime, Laura keeps her distance from Roach, resisting the other woman’s overtures of friendship. Undeterred, Roach learns everything she can about her new colleague, eventually uncovering Laura’s traumatic family history. When Roach realizes that she may have come across her very own true crime story, interest swiftly blooms into a dangerous obsession. -- Amazon.

General Note:

"A novel of suspense" -- Cover.

Edition:

First Scarlet Press edition.

Physical Description:

x, 368 pages ; 23 cm.

Genre:

Thrillers (Fiction)

Detective and mystery fiction.

Subject Term:

Booksellers and bookselling -- Fiction.

True crime stories -- Fiction.

Podcasts -- Fiction.

Female friendship -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Scarlet,

Publication Date:

2023

ISBN:

9781613163771

Publication Information:

New York : Scarlet, [2023]

Call Number:

SLATER

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003661553	New Adult Fiction	SLATER Alice	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Despite their common interest in true crime, Laura keeps her distance from Roach, resisting the other woman's overtures of friendship. Undeterred, Roach learns everything she can about her new colleague, eventually uncovering Laura's traumatic family history. When Roach realizes that she may have come across her very own true crime story, interest swiftly blooms into a dangerous obsession.

A darkly funny suspense novel, Death of a Bookseller raises ethical questions about the fervor for true crime and how we handle stories that don't belong to us.

Author Notes

Alice Slater is a writer, editor, podcaster and former bookseller based in London. She co-hosts the What Page Are You On? podcast with Bethany Rutter. Death of a Bookseller is her first novel.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Brogan Roach and Laura Bunting--the narrators of Slater's bleak debut--meet when the new manager of the failing London bookstore branch at which caustic Roach has long worked hires chipper Laura to boost sales. The women are like oil and water: Roach wears only black and is obsessed with true crime, while Laura sports colorful berets and thinks true crime is "tacky, exploitative crap." But when Roach learns that Laura writes poetry about murder victims because her mother fell prey to a notorious serial killer, Roach starts stalking Laura, desperate to convince her they share a "dark connection." The harder Roach tries, the more her misguided actions repulse and terrify Laura, locking the two in a dangerous downward spiral that threatens mutual destruction. Roach and Laura alternate chapters, their first-person-present accounts imparting tension and urgency. Both characters feel a bit cartoonish in their melodrama, but on balance, Slater delivers a twisty exploration of society's fascination with the macabre. Fans of Simone St. James's The Book of Cold Cases, take note. Agent: Caroline Eisenmann, Frances Goldin Literary. (Apr.)