The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom
April 28, 2008 by Jackie
Delightful! That’s the perfect word to describe Ian Sansom’s first book in his Mobile Library series. It’s rambling, conversational style is full of asides, amusing details and sound effects. Humor abounds on every page, sometimes a chuckle, other times, literally laughing out loud.
Londoner Israel Armstrong applies for a job as a librarian in a small town in Northern Ireland, thinking it might be better than selling DaVinci Codes at a discount bookstore. When he arrives, he discovers that the library has been closed due to budget cuts and the mobile library is to replace it, with himself as driver. This is not what he envisioned at all and watching him try to adjust is hilarious. His problems are compounded when it’s discovered that all of the books have disappeared and he is expected to get them back. The mystery isn’t well developed, which is irrelevant, because everything else is such fun.
Israel is definitely a fish out of water, unable to decipher the slang, the geography and the customs of the natives. There’s a host of well defined secondary characters, all eccentrics: his furious landlord, Georgie; his deceptive boss, Linda; affable Brownie; brazen Veronica and menacingly mysterious Ted. The encounters with them never go the way we, or Israel, thinks they will. This sense of unbalanced whimsy is what makes the book so uniquely enjoyable. If you’re looking for something light and witty, check this out on your library card, you won’t be disappointed.
Harper 2006 336 pp. ISBN 978-0-06-082250-7
Now this definitely sounds like my sort of book.
A mobile library with no books in the middle of Northern Ireland. Yes!
Wonderful review, as always.
“It’s rambling, conversational style is full of asides, amusing details and sound effects. Humor abounds on every page, sometimes a chuckle, other times, literally laughing out loud.”
You’ve won me over, although I am curious as to the ’sound effects’.
So where are the books then, eh?
I love love love Ian Sansom’s stuff. As well as the novels, there’s the delightfully quirky and mad ‘The Enthusiast Almanack’, which I suppose you’d have to say is a kind of ‘loo book’, only way too good for the loo - full of completely mad snippets, the kind where you find yourself giggling out loud about them days later on the bus, so that all the old ladies stare at you….
Hadn’t heard of that one, Rosy. I must look for it, because, like you, i really like the way Sansom writes.