Mr Dixon Disappears: The Mobile Library - Softcover

Sansom, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 000720700X ISBN 13: 9780007207008

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

Israel Armstrong, one of literature’s most unlikely detectives, returns for more crime solving adventure in this hilarious second novel from ‘The Mobile Library’ series.

The second in the ‘The Mobile Library ‘ detective series, ‘Mr Dixon Disappears’ once again features the magnificently hapless Israel Armstrong – the young, Jewish, duffle-coat wearing librarian who solves crimes, mysteries, and domestic problems all whilst driving a mobile library around the coast of Northern Ireland.

Dixon and Pickering's, County Antrim's legendary department store, is preparing to celebrate its centenary. But the elderly Mr Dixon – a member of the Ulster Association of Magicians – has gone missing, along with one hundred thousand pounds in cash. It smells, pretty badly, of a kidnap.

Israel becomes a suspect in the police investigation and is suspended from his job by his boss, the ever-fearsome Linda Wei. He's having to fight to clear his name.

Does Israel's acclaimed five-panel touring exhibition showing the history of Dixon and Pickering's in old photographs and artefacts perhaps hold the key to Mr Dixon's mysterious disappearance? Will romance blossom between Israel and Rosie Hart, the barmaid at the First and Last? Will Linda Wei stick to her diet? And has nobody here heard of Franz Kafka? All will be revealed in this hilarious and endlessly inventive sequel to ‘The Case of the Missing Books’.

About this title

About the Author:

Ian Sansom reviews regularly for the Guardian and the London Review of Books. His first book, The Truth About Babies, was published by Granta in 2002, and his second, Ring Road, by Fourth Estate in 2004.

From Booklist:

In The Case of the Missing Books (2007), the first installment in the Mobile Library series, Sansom overcame a paper-thin plot with scene after hilarious scene, as Israel Armstrong, the unlikely librarian of Tumdrum, Northern Ireland, tried to both adapt to village life and solve the titular crime. With the second installment, the question is this: now that we're familiar with our fish-on-land protagonist, and he is familiar with the locals, will character carry the day? The plot here is just as slight (Israel is mistakenly arrested in connection with a department-store theft and the disappearance of the store's owner) and the crime solving just as haphazard (Israel's crime-novel posturing, gleaned from paperbacks, ends in pratfalls)--and yes, the whole affair feels a bit lacking. Sansom can still be awfully funny, but even readers who love a put-on may start longing for him to develop some plotting chops. It's one thing to pull a beard; it's something else entirely to grow one yourself. Keir Graff
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 000720700X
• ISBN 13: 9780007207008
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240