Title: The Mobile Library Series: Case of the Missing Books (1)Author: Ian Sansom
Pages: 326
Summary: Israel is an intelligent, shy, passionate, sensitive sort of soul: he’s Jewish: he’s a vegetarian: he could maybe do with losing a little weight. And he’s just arrived in Ireland to take up his first post as a librarian. But the library’s been shut down and Israel ends up stranded on the North Antrim coast driving an old mobile library van. There’s a lot of nice scenery, but 15, 000 fewer books than there should be. Who on earth steals that many books? How? When would they have the time to read them all? And is there anywhere in this godforsaken place where he can get a proper cappuccino and a decent newspaper? Israel wants some answers . . .Israel is an intelligent, shy, passionate, sensitive sort of soul: he’s Jewish: he’s a vegetarian: he could maybe do with losing a little weight. And he’s just arrived in Ireland to take up his first post as a librarian. But the library’s been shut down and Israel ends up stranded on the North Antrim coast driving an old mobile library van. There’s a lot of nice scenery, but 15, 000 fewer books than there should be. Who on earth steals that many books? How? When would they have the time to read them all? And is there anywhere in this godforsaken place where he can get a proper cappuccino and a decent newspaper? Israel wants some answers . . .
My Rating: 6.5/10
What I liked/disliked about the book: This book was picked solely on the fact I needed a book based in Northern Ireland for the Reading Western Europe Challenge. So I went into this very sceptically and knowing there would be good chances I wouldn’t like it. But the book surprised me. Overall it wasn’t a bad book, and at times it was fairly amusing.
The entire cast of characters are a large group of overly eccentric and extremely odd personalities, as the protagonist is faced with this group as he him self is also an odd ball, stereotypical librarian/bibliophile/coffee addict. He’s goal was to run a library, what he got was a rural closed down library and instead was told he’d be driving a mobile library, except there is no books. His attempts at being a detective are, well an utter failure, so much the entire book is one big laugh. Which is what I liked about the book, it almost seemed to be a bit of a satire on mysteries. Instead of a gripping mystery book, it was a comedy as we watch the librarian stumble along trying to find the lost library book. That part worked, and it made for an interesting read.
What I didn’t like, was after awhile the eccentric characteristics and a lot of the actions by certain characters became redundant after awhile, and started to bug me. The quirks of the characters were funny at first, but when it just happened over and over every time the character came onto the pages, it started to make me lose interest.
But for the most part, it may not have been a spectacular read, but a funny read for a raining day, that entertained me for a while, I probably won’t continue with the series, but I’m glad I tried the book and author, because it made for a good laugh.
Would I recommend it to read: Hmm. If you like comedic/satire type books I'd say give this a try. Or if you're looking to try out something very different than the usual mystery books out there. But overall I'm not sure this book is for everyone.
What to read next: If you enjoyed the book, the I'd say give the second book in the series a go (Mr. Dixon Disappears)
Challenges: Read 'n' Review, Pages Read, 1st in a Series Challenge, 10/10 Challenge,
100+ Challenge, A - Z Challenge, Bibli0philic Challenge, Countdown Challenge, Global Challenge, NaJuReMoNoMo, New Author Challenge, Reading Western Europe Challenge,
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