Book Review

By Derryll White

Dunning, John (2006).  The Bookwoman’s Last Fling.

                  “His tombstone should read ‘He loved books!’.”  – George Easter

This is a story about a rich woman, Candice, who had an incredible rare book collection. She embodies the best parts of being a bibliophile and Dunning perhaps does not focus enough on these attributes. She is plagued by a bibliomaniac who has to have her collection. This introduces Cliff Janeway, an ex-Denver, Colorado cop who owns a bookstore and was, in past novels of the Bookman series, an ardent collector of first edition fiction hardbacks.

This fact alone sets the Bookman series of five novels apart as something different in the mystery genre.

The first in the series, ‘Booked To Die,’ (1992), received all kinds of laudable reviews.  It taught a lot about book collecting in its mystery format and spawned something called “hypermodern collecting.”  This only lasted a few years, mainly among mystery fans. Dunning’s advice was “Sell the book when the book is hot!”

Dunning (1943-2023) was involved in a bookselling business in Denver, with his wife Helen Dunning. The Old Algonquin Bookstore opened in 1984, specializing in rare collectible volumes, and closed in 1994. Helen Dunning has continued it as an internet and mail order book business at [email protected].

All of this is particularly relevant to ‘The Bookwoman”s Last Fling’ where Janeway’s life partner, Erin, is also his partner in the bookstore. The author actually pulls much from his early life with this, his last novel. Dunning did work as a stable hand at a horse racing track and all of this story centres on the racing life and horse track etiquette.  In fact, the novel strays from the bookman theme in its focus on the day-to-day work of racing.

John Dunning’s writing career was ended by a brain tumor in 2006 so ‘The Bookwoman’s Last Fling’ is also his own last fling.  The series is of real interest to people who love real, tangible books.  Picking up any of the titles transports the reader into a fascinating, rich literary world.

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Excerpt from the novel:

BOOKPLATE – I picked a beautiful copy of Heidi and carefully opened it.  I was guessing seven grand, maybe twelve for this copy, but what drew my immediate attention was an elaborate color bookplate tightly affixed to the inside front board.  The illustration showed an adolescent girl standing naked in a bright garden with her right arm wrapped around a tiger, her left dropped below her navel and hidden by a bush.  I opened another book, same bookplate.  The material looked like vellum, perhaps paper vellum, which I had heard could be almost as tough as leather.  The background was a fleshy pink, the style art deco.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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