The Bookwoman's Last Fling

New York, London, Toronto & Sydney: Scribner, 2006. Hardback. Very Good — in Very Good Dust Wrapper. A little wear to the edges of the dust wrapper, a decent copy otherwise. . First edition (first printing). Hardback in dust wrapper (quarter-bound brown on mustard boards with gilt titling to the spine) Physically 9½” x 6¼” (1 kg); 337pp; In the Cliff Janeway Bookman series; Cover art by Kevin Brainard; From the cover: “Denver bookman Cliff Janeway would have liked Candice Geiger. She loved books with a true book-woman’s passion. Her collection of first-edition children’s books is the best that Janeway ever hopes to see. Sadly, Janeway and Candice Geiger will never meet. She died much too young. Now, twenty years later, her books remain a testament to an extraordinary woman’s remarkable vision.Janeway first learns about the juvenilia collection when Candice’s elderly husband, H. R. Geiger, passes away and Janeway travels to their Idaho home to assess the collection. The estate can’t be distributed until the books are valued, so there’s pressure on Janeway to do the job quickly. But one look at the books tells Janeway something’s wrong. Valuable titles are missing, replaced by cheap reprints. Other hugely valuable pieces remain. Why would a thief take one priceless book and leave an equally valuable volume on the shelf?The answer may lie in Candice’s story. The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, she married horse owner and trainer H. R. Geiger at a young age. They travelled the racetrack circuit with some success, as evidenced by winner’s-circle photographs — in which Candice is always a mysterious background figure dressed in white.Two decades after Candice’s strange death, Janeway finds himself deep in a book mystery that may turn out to be much more than a cataloguing exercise. It may even involve murder. Candice’s daughter, Sharon, may be one of the few people who can help Janeway discover the truth. Sharon has her own Idaho ranch where she takes in sick and injured horses. Janeway worries that her house contains something that could make her very vulnerable: half of her mother’s fabulous book collection.The trail of Candice’s shadowy past leads Janeway to California’s Golden Gate and Santa Anita racetracks, where he signs on as a racehorse hot walker. A novice at racetrack life, he tries to remain inconspicuous while listening to the chatter among the hands. He doesn’t like what he hears. And when he goes to the house where Candice died to look for answers, he finds more than he bargained for.With its rich mix of books and horses, <i>The Bookwoman’s Last Fling</i> is a classic entry in John Dunning’s acclaimed Bookman series of suspense novels, sure to bring this superbly talented author even more accolades.” ISBN: 978-0-7432-8945-0 || The book is on my shelves and will be carefully packed and posted from the pastoral paradise of Peasedown St. John, Bath, by a real bookseller in a real book shop - with my personal guarantee and my beady eye on the Consumer Contracts Regulations. REMEMBER! Buying my copy means the bookshop Jack Russells get their supper! My Book #195209|| Condition: