{"id":11424,"date":"2025-04-07T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11424"},"modified":"2025-04-06T15:24:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T19:24:59","slug":"another-winner-from-tim-sullivan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11424","title":{"rendered":"Another Winner from Tim Sullivan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When I scan the list of books I\u2019ll be reviewing in the next few months for crimefictionlover.com, I\u2019m thrilled when I see one of Tim Sullivan\u2019s entertaining murder mysteries coming up. The series, each entry titled with the profession of the victim, proves no occupation is safe from murderous impulses. His latest is The Bookseller<\/em>. You might think a bookseller, particularly one whose esoteric specialty is dusty rare books and first editions, couldn\u2019t rile anybody up to the point of murder, but Ed Squire appears to have done just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this story, Detective Sergeant George Cross, somewhere on the autism spectrum, again burnishes his reputation as an investigative bulldog. Once George\u2019s jaws latch onto a case, he isn\u2019t letting it go until he\u2019s absolutely and completely satisfied the right perpetrator has been brought to justice. This is good for justice and frustrating for his colleagues in the Avon and Somerset Major Crimes Unit, who meanwhile have been barking up a great many wrong trees and just want to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, George and his partner, Josie Ottey, would find it easier to quickly home in on the proper suspect if victims didn\u2019t tend to go through life accumulating a significant array of enemies. Over the course of this investigation, the detectives uncover serious family problems\u2014financial and interpersonal. It begins to look as if everything isn\u2019t on the up-and-up in the book shop, either. Most dangerous of all, the deceased ran afoul of a Russian oligarch to whom he sold some stolen documents, and the man wants his \u00a32 million back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russians\u2014not just the fabulously wealthy oligarch, but also his gangsterish henchmen\u2014bring a sense of real menace to the proceedings. Only some clever police work by Ottey and Cross\u2019s team reveals the extent of their rather persistent presence and how they have been staking out the Squires\u2019 shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, George is beset by his own problems. DS Ottey is now a Detective Inspector, outranking him. He fears he\u2019ll be assigned a new partner. Of course, everyone recognizes she\u2019s the only person who\u2019s been able to work with him. As a reader, I also want her to stay! She\u2019s an interesting character and a perfect foil for George.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More significantly, George\u2019s father, Raymond, has had a stroke and will need a long course of rehabilitation, which George assumes he should take charge of. No one, especially Raymond, believes that would be a good idea, but changing George\u2019s mind is never easy. The relationship between George and his father\u2014and in more recent books, his mother\u2014is one of the many charms of this series. Like Ottey, his parents know they can\u2019t interact with their unusual son in the usual ways, and they\u2019re models of effective coping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Sullivan is crime writer, screenwriter, and director, and his George Cross series benefits from that background in both (\u201cI didn\u2019t see that coming!\u201d) plotting and the development of a diverse, never-boring cast of characters. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I scan the list of books I\u2019ll be reviewing in the next few months for crimefictionlover.com, I\u2019m thrilled when I see one of Tim Sullivan\u2019s entertaining murder mysteries coming up. The series, each entry titled with the profession of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[54,40,126],"tags":[2277,678,2276],"class_list":["post-11424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-detective","category-fiction","category-reading-2","tag-british-crime","tag-murder","tag-tim-sullivan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Yg","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11426,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11424\/revisions\/11426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}