Unsigned (Booklover's Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: What a Disappointment!
Review: I had looked forward to this book very much. I am fascinated with books and their history, and the background and subject matter give this book an entirely different level for enjoyment.

But I have had it with the hero: Alex Plumtree who is beginning to look more and more like the world's biggest patsy. The things which happen to him, mostly brought about by people who "have been sworn to secrecy" or who "just want to protect him" boggle the imagination. It's time he stood up to his "friends" and said, "Enough already." Unless of course he enjoys being the fool.

Rating:
Summary: totslly Unbelievable!
Review: One would think that being the owner of a small publishing house and an antiquarian bookstore in England would lead to a sedate existence. However, Alex Plumtree has a sideline, investigating homicides that make life a bit spicy for the book lover. On the night of a gala bookstore opening and accompanied book signing, Alex expects an exciting but relatively quiet evening. Included in the festivities is reclusive author McKinley Montauge, known for his serial killer thrillers. He is signing his latest book, Beowulf's Blood.

Before the party, a reporter from the bookseller newspaper jokingly tells Alex that his publisher plans to have Montauge killed to boost sales. While laughing about this in a coffee shop, a bullet is shot through the window giving credence to the journalist's story. In the following days, other horrible things occur to Alex. His landlord wants Plumtree Publishing to vacate their premises within thirty days. Someone breaks into Alex's bookstore. Someone kills a Beowulf scholar along with the murder of the publisher of the dead author. Worse, yet, Alex keeps seeing glimpses of his deceased fiance. The compulsive Alex decides to make sense of everything by doing a bit of sleuthing.

Any bibliophile, fan of a good cerebral mystery, or a romantic will want to read Julie Kaewert's latest "Booklover's Mystery," UNSIGNED. Familiar characters reappear, picking up threads from earlier stories, and provide a warm and cozy sense of homecoming. The well-done mystery is finely detailed so that if a reader blinks they may miss a critical clue. Ms. Kaewert has written another winner in this entertaining series.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not the best in this series
Review: Unsigned, the latest in Julie Kaewert's Booklover's Mystery series is good, but not her best. A reader who wants a fast paced story will not be pleased with this one, and a reader who wants a singularly focused "who-dun-it" type of mystery will also not be pleased. Kaewert's style is to weave a complicated plot with many twists and turns, which successfully keeps the reader guessing if they will keep reading! There are multiple murders, multiple attempts on the protagonist's life, and multiple conspiracies being played out all along.

As in preceding stories, but particularly in this one, virtually everyone in the protagonist's publishing and bookselling world is suspect at some point. Who can Alex Plumtree trust and what information can he entrust them with? While puzzling over three suspicious offers to buy his own small, family publishing firm for a lot more than it's worth, he helps the British government save the British (or even European) publishing industry from becoming a giant monopoly. Oh yes, along the way, he also helps to preserve the integrity and ethical standards in academic research involving the study of extant manuscripts of England's famed Beowulf and of the Apocryphal book of Judith.

Kaewert always leaves loose ends and unsolved pieces of the puzzle. As I suspected, the main loose end from the previous book in the series, Untitled, was picked up in this one, that is the fate of Alex Plumtree's fiancé Sarah Townsend. She is alive and back in London after all (after being held hostage in Iraq), but her exact whereabouts and the state of their relationship is another little mystery within a mystery.

Although I have read only three of the five published in this series thus far, I find Untitled to be the most intriguing and fast paced, and therefore un-put-downable. However, I will say that with Unsigned Kaewert has made one major improvement - she has finally done a good job of making her characters believably British in the use of their expressions and terminology. Now maybe in Uncatalogued, due out next year, these strong points will be combined.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not the best in this series
Review: Unsigned, the latest in Julie Kaewert's Booklover's Mystery series is good, but not her best. A reader who wants a fast paced story will not be pleased with this one, and a reader who wants a singularly focused "who-dun-it" type of mystery will also not be pleased. Kaewert's style is to weave a complicated plot with many twists and turns, which successfully keeps the reader guessing if they will keep reading! There are multiple murders, multiple attempts on the protagonist's life, and multiple conspiracies being played out all along.

As in preceding stories, but particularly in this one, virtually everyone in the protagonist's publishing and bookselling world is suspect at some point. Who can Alex Plumtree trust and what information can he entrust them with? While puzzling over three suspicious offers to buy his own small, family publishing firm for a lot more than it's worth, he helps the British government save the British (or even European) publishing industry from becoming a giant monopoly. Oh yes, along the way, he also helps to preserve the integrity and ethical standards in academic research involving the study of extant manuscripts of England's famed Beowulf and of the Apocryphal book of Judith.

Kaewert always leaves loose ends and unsolved pieces of the puzzle. As I suspected, the main loose end from the previous book in the series, Untitled, was picked up in this one, that is the fate of Alex Plumtree's fiancé Sarah Townsend. She is alive and back in London after all (after being held hostage in Iraq), but her exact whereabouts and the state of their relationship is another little mystery within a mystery.

Although I have read only three of the five published in this series thus far, I find Untitled to be the most intriguing and fast paced, and therefore un-put-downable. However, I will say that with Unsigned Kaewert has made one major improvement - she has finally done a good job of making her characters believably British in the use of their expressions and terminology. Now maybe in Uncatalogued, due out next year, these strong points will be combined.

Rating:
Summary: totslly Unbelievable!
Review: Unsigned: A Booklover's Mystery is by far the worst book in this series, and I was really looking forward to reading it. It is not only implausible, but difficult to follow or to believe. Many of the people Alex Plumtree, the hero, has trusted for years either deceive him for his own protection, or they deceive him for their own gain. The ending is completely unsatisfactory. The entire book should be unsigned!