Book Review: The Bad Book Affair by Ian Sansom
The Bad Book Affair
Ian Sansom
Harper Paperbacks, 2010
ISBN 0061452017
Trade Paperback
Amateur sleuth Israel Armstrong is a Jewish vegetarian mobile librarian from Northern London, now living on the northernmost coast “of the north of the north” of Northern Ireland. He allows a 14-year-old girl to borrow a “bad book” (American Pastoral by Philip Roth). If lending a young girl such a book wasn’t bad enough, the girl, daughter of a prominent Unionist candidate, disappeared the next day. Besides the police, a number of others suspect Israel of not only abducting the girl, but corrupting her to boot: his boss, Linda Wei, a lesbian Chinese single mother; and a nosy newspaper reporter.
This book is heavy on satire and light on mystery. No murder is committed. Ian Sansom uses Israel for his real purpose of skewering politics, religion, prejudice, censorship, and pretensions of all sorts.
I enjoyed this so-called mystery, but certainly not as a mystery. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys offered far more grittiness and nail-biting moments. As a caustic satire, The Bad Book Affair has much to offer. And there is more than one laugh-at-loud passage.
Reviewed by Maggie King, November 2010.
December 6, 2010
Tags: Harper, humor, mystery, Northern Ireland Posted in: Full Reviews, Guest Reviews
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