For those who haven’t read the first two books in the series (Booked to Die and The Bookman’s Wake), Cliff Janeway is a former Denver cop now antiquarian bookseller. This is a very literate series with fascinating trivia about the book trade for those of us who love books.

Because of their mutual interest in rare books, Janeway is close friends with Judge Leighton Huxley and his wife. At a dinner party at the Huxleys, he meets Hal Archer, a Pulitzer-prize-winning author, whom Janeway instantly and instinctively dislikes. Also in attendance is Erin d’Angela, a lawyer, whom Janeway does like immediately and would like to know better.

Janeway has purchased a rare book by Richard Burton–“the explorer, not the actor.” He is interviewed on an NPR program and there is discussion about a mysterious inscription to one Charles Warren.

This interview brings the very elderly Josephine Gallant to Janeway’s bookstore. She claims that his Burton book is one of many once owned by her grandfather and promised to her. A book dealer in Baltimore fraudulently acquired them all. Her grandfather was Charles Warren, the traveling partner of Burton in the American South for three weeks not long before the Civil War. What Burton did during those three weeks has been a mystery for many years.

Mrs. Gallant has been befriended by the Ralstons – Mike and his wife Denise. Just before she dies at their house, she persuades Janeway to promise to find the missing Burton books. Not long afterwards, Denise is murdered. The police suspect Mike Ralston of having murdered his wife, but Janeway suspects the crime may have been connected to a rare Burton book Mrs. Gallant gave to Janeway and the Ralstons. He heads to Baltimore to investigate the owners of the bookstore that originally acquired Charlie Warren’s books and to learn more about the Burton-Warren friendship from Koko Bujak, a retired librarian who recorded Mrs. Gallant’s hypnosis-enhanced memories.

Before long Janeway, Erin, and Koko are combining forces to discover the truth behind the mysterious missing three weeks as well as dodging gangsters who want the past to stay buried.

I figured out the whodunit early in the book – the who, not the why or how – but the question of who killed Denise is only a small part of this story. Mystery is piled on mystery as the story continues and more characters are introduced.

Mid-way through the book is a lengthy first-person account of Burton’s and Warren’s travels in which Abner Doubleday and Fort Sumter play a minor role. Burton and Charlie become characters nearly as prominent as Janeway and the two women.

I have to make a personal comment on Koko Bujak: how nice to have a woman of a “certain age” – a librarian yet – who isn’t frumpy, dotty, or a fuddy-duddy! Her efforts are nearly as instrumental in uncovering the truth as are Janeway’s.

Bookman’s Promise is one of those books that’s likely to send readers scrambling for more information, and Dunning has obligingly included some bibliographic information on books about Burton at the end of his narrative.

It’s a pleasure to welcome Cliff Janeway back. His loyal fans hope another decade won’t pass until the next installment.

--Lesley Dunlap