I didn’t realize that biblios had such a broad range. While researching, I found rare manuscripts and letters, and even scraps of writing on paper were considered part of the genre. A few titles fit very neatly. Here’s one–The Vivero Letter, Bagley, Desmond, 1968– A letter dating from 1539 and the conquest of Mexico by Cortes is the basis of the plot. Not something I’d be remotely interested in, but we all have our own peculiar tastes. Murder Recalls Van Kill, Bayne, Spencer, 1939 has a detective with the apt name of Hal Van Kill. Van Kill is a ‘detective by circumstance’ whatever that means. I’ve never heard of someone being forced into detective work, due to poverty or lack of other skills. Especially since this detective is also an expert on ancient manuscripts and after taking a tutoring job (I thought he was forced to be a detective, now he’s tutoring? As an expert on manuscripts or dead bodies?) the professor he works for is found dead. Combining several sub-genres of biblio mysteries, a librarian, writers, manuscripts and letters, The Fourth Man on the Rope, Berckman, Evelyn,
1972 involves a relocated woman who catalogs recently acquired manuscripts for a country library, where she meets an older woman who claims she has a trunk full of manuscripts and letters from various deceased famous writers. It never ceases to amaze me how little a title can seemingly have in common with the interior plot. What The Fourth Man on the Rope represents, must be a mystery solved after reading the book, I would hope. Another mixture, The Bells At The Old Bailey, Bowers, Dorothy, 1947, is set in Ravenchurch where deaths were ruled as suicides until Bertha Tidy is sent a couple of letters threatening her life. Among her suspect pals, an antiquarian bookseller, and an world renown author. I love her name–Bertha Tidy–I immediately imagine who could be her nemesis- Martha Messy, or Cal Cluttered, or Dick Dirty. Alliterations, all!
It seems as though antiquarian booksellers go hand in hand with mysterious letters. A book I mentioned in a different biblio article can also be categorized here. The Luxury of Exile, Buss, Louis, 1997–a bunch of letters involving Lord Byron start to destroy a antiquarian bookseller’s life, his 
marriage dies, he ditches his career, all to pursue the truth within Byron’s secrets.
Ok, this one is a bit of a stretch, although it is written by the acclaimed author, K. C. Constantine. The Blank Page 1974 –The series police detective, Mario Balzic, discovers a blank sheet of paper on the body of a murdered college co-ed, and it becomes the key to finding her murderer. Worth reading even without the biblio association. This synopsis gave me a chuckle. The main character of Appleby is nearly crushed to death by a falling body, while he’s simply sitting on the beach! Turns out the falling missile was Dr. Sutch who had been studying the Ampersand Papers dealing with poets Wordsworth and Shelley when he plummeted from a castle’s tower. The ever enduring, ‘did he fall, or was he pushed’ question is pondered in the strangely titled, The Ampersand Papers, 1978.
Speaking of humor, Stuart Kaminsky wrote wonderfully amusing mysteries starring various movie stars. He Done Her Wrong, 1983 casts Mae
West hiring the detective Toby Peters to locate her stolen diary. I can just imagine what Miss West’s diary may contain!
A huge tome, Ex-Libris, King, Ross-1998- has it all. A secluded home in the country, a London bookseller, a looted library, spies, smugglers, ciphers, forgeries, Sir Walter Raleigh, and a lost Hermetic text–all taking place in the 17th century. Having no idea what a Hermetic text was, I wikipedia’d it. “The Hermetica are greek wisdom texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, mostly presented as dialogues in which a teacher, generally identified with Hermes Trismegistus or “thrice greatest Hermes”, enlightens a disciple. The texts discuss the nature of the divine, mind, nature and the cosmos: some touch upon Alchemy, astrology, and related concepts.”
Who can resist anything that includes the Nazis? Well, I can, but for many, those war years and in particular, the Nazi Party, are addictive. To prove my point–just take a gander at the History Channel–at one time around 90 per cent of their scheduled shows featured Hitler screaming and Hitler Youth marching in lock step. Apparently, a rare book dealer can’t resist either, he’s hired to find the missing Despain papers, Despain having been a raving anti-semite and traitor to the British empire. He fled to embrace the Nazi brotherhood and his papers sold long ago. Again, the tile is pretty self evident--The Despain Papers, Sims, George, 1992.
What better place than here to stop for now!
