OXFORD EXIT: A KATE IVORY MYSTERY - Hardcover

Stallwood, Veronica

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684197294 ISBN 13: 9780684197296

Publisher: Scribner, 1995

Synopsis

Oxford University has more than a hundred libraries, some huge and old, like the prestigious Bodleian, some small and idiosyncratic. Each college, each department, runs its own independent library, but their catalogues are linked by computer so that anyone, anywhere in the world, can look in and see who holds what books and just where they are kept.
And someone with computer skills can steal valuable books and erase the catalogue records so that no trace of the theft remains.
Why not call the police if such a theft is suspected? Some situations are better kept quiet as long as possible. Even England's oldest university has to raise money from modern benefactors, and they might not appreciate a scandal.
Enter novelist Kate Ivory, who agrees to a friend's request to accept a special assignment to try to discover what is happening to the books.
She doesn't like what she finds. Not only are books disappearing; a young library trainee, Jenna Coates, vanished a year before and was subsequently found murdered. Could there be a connection? Jenna was not particularly popular among her colleagues, but she certainly didn't deserve to be killed. Kate believes that finding her murderer is more important than retrieving books, however rare and valuable.

About this title

About the Author

Stallwood was born in London, educated abroad, and now lives in Oxford, where she has worked at the Bodleian Library and Lincoln College Library.

From Booklist

At first glance, this may seem to be a mystery only a librarian could love, what with its liberal sprinkling of library acronyms and jargon. But Stallwood's spunky, sassy heroine, Kate Ivory, is charming, and the plot is so well conceived and original that even nonlibrarians will find the story entertaining. Kate's in the middle of writing one of her popular historical novels when her friend Andrew, a member of the security committee at Oxford's Bodleian Library, asks her to help unmask a clever book thief. Andrew and his committee suspect the thief is an ingenious computer hacker who deletes records from the library's online catalog to hide the theft of some of the collection's most valuable books--which could generate big bucks on the library black market. At the same time, Kate's friend Emma discovers a frighteningly dark "creative" streak in one of the students in her beginning writing class. The two plots seem unrelated until Kate's investigation runs head-on into the disturbed writer. Nicely understated humor and excellent writing make this one an "A-list" choice. Emily Melton

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0684197294
• ISBN 13: 9780684197296
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192