Jenn McKinlay: I am delighted to have my dear friend and plot group buddy here with us today to share what inspired her latest (and greatest!) bibliophile mystery! Woo hoo!
Kate Carlisle: We mystery writers are a warped lot. We have to be—we put ourselves into the minds of people who do some pretty awful things. You know, like murder.
Yet, I can still be shocked by real-life villainy. Archivist and supposed booklover Greg Priore stole eight million dollars of rare books and ephemera from the antiquarian library he managed. It gets worse. With an X-acto knife, Priore cut out the heart of many precious books, removing maps and illustrations to sell to unwitting private collectors. How could he????
For almost 20 years, Priore fenced stolen goods through a rare book dealer. Both men pled guilty to their crimes.
The ending of the story—the sentencing—is perhaps the most shocking part. Zero jail time. Just a few years of house arrest followed by probation. (The judge explained to the New York Times that they weren’t incarcerated because of the coronavirus pandemic.)
Full story: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/theft-carnegie-library-books-maps-artworks-180975506/
When I read that story, I was as shocked and as disgusted as the rest of the book-loving community. But I was also inspired. (I told you we writers are warped!)
In my latest Bibliophile Mystery, The Twelve Books of Christmas, twelve rare and valuable books have mysteriously gone missing from the library of Castle MacKinnon, in Oddlochen, Scotland. Bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright flies with her husband Derek Stone to Scotland to attend the holiday wedding of dear friends and to find the missing books. When she arrives, she’s disturbed to discover that the castle library is locked, and that the only person with a key is the librarian under whose watch the books went missing.
Unfortunately, as Brooklyn and Derek search the castle for the missing books, they come across something far more sinister—the body of a murder victim. Could the death and the book thefts be connected?
I’ll be at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ on Saturday, November 5 at 2 pm, with Hannah Dennison and Michelle Hoffman. We’d love to see you there! If you can’t make it in person, you can purchase a signed copy of The Twelve Books of Christmas here: http://bit.ly/3JeFQj3
GIVEAWAY
For a chance to win a $25 gift card to Poisoned Pen Bookstore*, tell me about a favorite holiday tradition—any holiday!
*The giveaway is open internationally, but if the winner is outside the US, the prize will be a $25 gift card to the bookstore of his or her choice, as long as it can be purchased online with a US credit card.
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ABOUT THE TWELVE BOOKS OF CHRISTMAS
The first ever Christmas mystery in the beloved New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mystery series!
San Francisco book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright and her hunky security-expert husband, Derek Stone, face a locked-room murder mystery during the holidays in Scotland.
In the middle of a wonderful Christmas holiday in Dharma, Brooklyn and Derek receive a frantic phone call from their dear friend Claire near Loch Ness, Scotland. The laird of the castle, Cameron MacKinnon, has just proposed to her! They plan to be married on New Year’s Day, and they want Derek and Brooklyn to be their witnesses. And while they’re visiting, Claire hopes that Brooklyn will be able to solve a little mystery that’s occurred in the castle library—twelve very rare, very important books have gone missing.
Once in Scotland, Brooklyn starts working on the mystery of the missing books but is soon distracted by all of the thumping and bumping noises she’s been hearing in the middle of the night. You’d think the Ghost of Christmas Past had taken up residence. But when one castle employee meets an untimely end and a guest is killed by an arrow through the heart, Brooklyn and Derek know this is not the work of any ghost. Now they must race to find a killer and a book thief before another murder occurs and their friends’ bright and happy future turns dark and deadly.
Kate Carlisle is the New York Times bestselling author of two ongoing series: the Bibliophile Mysteries featuring San Francisco bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright, whose rare book restoration skills uncover old secrets, treachery and murder; and the Fixer-Upper Mysteries (as seen on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries), featuring Shannon Hammer, a home contractor who discovers not only skeletons in her neighbors' closets, but murder victims, too. Kate’s latest book is The Twelve Books of Christmas, Bibliophile Mystery 17.
