The Case of the Missing Books

By Ian Sansom

Israel Armstrong went to school to learn to be a librarian, his dream job. Working in a bookstore as he has done for years is not his vision for himself. He gets a position as librarian at a village library in Ireland. He knows this will be quite a change for him, a born and bred Londoner. But the new job turns out to be an even greater challenge than he ever thought.
First off, the library is closed. Instead it is a mobile library or bookmobile. It isn't even a nice bookmobile since it has been sitting neglected in a barn. It doesn't even have any shelves for the books. Next, it turns out all the books, some 15,000 volumes, have disappeared. Israel's boss expects him not only to get the bookmobile up and running, get shelves installed, locate all the overdue books but also expects him to track down all the thousands of missing books and since Israel has signed a contract he is pretty much stuck. Further, he is living in a converted chicken coop, the locals are hostile and smug, and Israel is a bit of a boob.
Israel's adventure goes bad from the start, with the ferry running late, his ride never showing up, the library closed down, his pushy boss who won't let Israel out of his contract and finally a hostile driver who bullies Israel into climbing in the skylight of the old bookmobile and in the process soiling his clothes and bumping his head. It just goes downhill from there as he gets bashed and pushed around and his wallet burned up and his glasses broken and various injuries to his person and the locals are all being a bunch of jerks.
In the end Israel is shown the solution of the mystery of the missing books and it turns out it really wasn't a mystery since every one but Israel already knew where the books were and I suppose were laughing their heads off at the poor fool's struggles to get their library up and running.

I didn't care for this novel. Israel lets himself be bullied by a bunch of heartless and unsympathetic local yokels. He is attacked, housed in a chicken coop with chickens in it, threatened by various people and generally treated really foully. Israel is a doormat who lets people run roughshod over him and jerk him around and generally make a complete ass of him. I kept waiting for him to stand up to the creeps surrounding him. It just seemed like people were being mean simply because he was a stranger in town. I got really tired of reading about Israel being abused. I guess the abuse is supposed to be funny but it wasn't funny to me. I didn't like the spineless Israel, I didn't like his hostile boss and his bully driver, I didn't like the hateful locals, I found none of it to be amusing, and I just didn't like this book.

For another review see The Guardian.

New Words

Craic: fun and enjoyment. "His new life in Ireland was supposed to be overflowing with blarney and craic."

Pantechnicon: a large moving van (especially one used for moving furniture. "When the ferry finally arrived in the grey-grim port of Larne, hours late, and disgorged its human, pantechnicon and white-van contents onto the stinking, oily, wholly indifferent harbourside, Israel had a bad feeling, and it wasn't just his headache and the sea-sickness."

Tardis: The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space) is a time machine and spacecraft in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who.

Blaggarding giving someone a hard time. "The man coughed again, and spat on the pavement. 'They're blaggarding you, you know.'"

Ex-libris: Latin, literally "from the books." A bookplate printed with the owner's name or initials; a book that has been discarded from a library. "'Old librarians never die,' said Norman. 'They just become ex-libris.'"

Pavlova: this is a dessert that is made primarily of a baked meringue shell that is then filled with various fruit. "He may well have been a touring Romany musician; he was certainly enjoying his vast, Grauballe pavlova."

Theosophists Theosophy is a philosophy that holds that all religions have a portion of the truth. "Presbyterians might as well have been theosophists as far as Israel was aware, and they may have practised child sacrifice and believed in every kind of impossible thing, but he liked their style."

Furze: a prickly evergreen shrub. "Israel wasn't entirely sure he knew what a furze was but he started rootling around under a couple of likely looking bushes, ripping his hands on their yellowy spiny branches."

Geg: a funny person; a fun time. "'That's not funny at all. I'll tell you what that is: that is hilarious. You're a geg, d'you know that?'"

Bogeys and dote: Bogeys is snot; dote is a cute person, usually a baby. "'And Charlie with the bogeys - he's a wee dote, isn't he?'"

Waney-edge: An unsmoothed, natural wavy edge on a plank, which could be covered by tree bark. "'D'you have any waney-edge?' asked Ted, who was poking around in a pile of logs."

Rodden: a narrow, little road. "'And when you're done, look, it's back down here and left down the rodden there, and you'll be back at the farm in ten minutes.'"

Echt, pleached, espaliered, cordoned, and tanalised: Echt means genuine, not fake or counterfeit or a reproduction. To pleach is to unite by interweaving, as branches of trees. Espaliered is when a tree or shrub is trained to grow flat against a trellis or wall. To cordon a tree is to train and prune it to grow in a pattern or along a trellis or other support. Tanalised wood is wood that has been treated with preservatives. "The trees that flanked these curious, echt sculptures had been variously pleached, espaliered , and cordoned, giving them the appearance of having been shaped out of old scraps of tanalised timber rather than having actually grown up naturally from the earth."

Trilby hat and Boiler suit: A trilby hat or trilby, is a soft felt men's hat with a narrow brim and a deeply indented crown. Traditionally it was made from rabbit hair felt, but now it is sometimes made from other materials. A boiler suit is a coverall; a one-piece garment with full-length sleeves and legs like a jumpsuit, but usually less tight-fitting. "He was wearing a trilby hat, and a boiler suit over a three-piece suit, and he was working very slowly and with deep concentration with what looked like a cooking spatula, shaping and moulding a concrete bust, like one of the huge heads Israel had seen in the garden."

Shloer and Banoffee pies: Shloer is a line of non-alcoholic sparkling drinks, mostly grape juice available in the United Kingdom. Banoffee pie is a dessert made from bananas, cream and toffee served in a pastry or cookie crumble base. "Christmas was only a week away, and there was a tree, and decorations and much sipping of Shloer and wine and beer and at the point at which the desserts were being served -- a range of pavlovas and banoffee pies to rival those in any mid-range provincial pub or bistro -- Zelda swept out of the kitchens and through the room as if on the crest of a wave, hair high and erect, chatting to guests, laughing with them, dangling mistletoe as she went."