A struggling young novelist is recruited to go undercover in a Florida bookshop to find stolen manuscripts
A heist, a bookseller and a writer
A gang of thieves stages a daring robbery at a university library and steals the original manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels, which are priceless and insured for millions. The FBI makes some arrests, but the manuscripts vanish. Suspicion falls on Bruce Cable, a charming bookseller on a Florida island who is rumoured to deal in rare books.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who enjoy light, entertaining capers with a bookish setting, beach-town atmosphere and colourful characters.
What you will get
A breezy, entertaining caper about books, writers and a literary theft, set in a sunny island town with a bookish heart.
Camino Island Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Mystery & Thriller · Literary heist · Bookshop · Florida
Length
368 pages · ≈ 11 h
More about this book
Mercer Mann is a young novelist with writer's block, a lost teaching job and a pile of debts. A mysterious woman working for the insurance company offers her a deal: spend the summer on Camino Island, where she used to visit her grandmother, and get close to Bruce Cable and his circle of writers. All she has to do is find out whether he has the manuscripts.
Mercer finds herself drawn into the island's literary scene, with its parties, eccentric authors and Bruce's busy, beautifully run bookshop, and she becomes more involved with Bruce than she intended. The book offers an inside look at the world of bookselling, publishing and rare book collecting, and it has more charm and humour than suspense. There is a romance with some adult content but nothing explicit, and the tension rises towards a clever ending. It is quite different from Grisham's legal thrillers.
Light, fun and bookish, a perfect holiday read for book lovers who enjoy a gentle mystery, a sunny setting and a look behind the scenes of the book trade. It is the first of the Camino novels. About 368 pages in the Dell mass-market paperback.
The Firm
The Lions of Fifth Avenue
84, Charing Cross Road
Camino Ghosts
Camino Winds
The Whistler
The Shadow of the Wind
The Pelican Brief
The Client
The Street Lawyer
Dead Until Dark
The Runaway Jury