Bookhunter by Jason Shiga

There are times when you get an impression from the cover of a book and you’re exactly right, or there are the times when you’re either pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised. I had some thoughts about what was in here and lo and behold, it is exactly as awesome as I thought. This is the story of the Library Police in the 70’s and the whole book reads like a slam-bang action movie, with our heroes trying to solve the mystery of who stole a valuable old Bible and replaced it with an imperfect copy. That’s the bulk of the book, anyway. Things get started with an introduction to the team, as we see them track down a man who’s trying to rent all the copies of a certain book in an act of censorship. Really, the book could have ended with Special Agent Bay sliding across the kitchen floor and blasting the guy in the stomach with a shotgun, but this is a mere taste of the fun yet to come. Things get bogged down in technicalities a bit in the middle, if you consider learning all sorts of things about police procedures getting bogged down. It’s impossible to pick a highlight in this book though, and any mention I make of them would serve as spoilers. I’ll just say that I’ve never thought of a card catalogue as a weapon, but god bless Jason Shiga for doing just that. This is a tremendous, indispensable book, like every single thing I’ve seen this man write. Buy it, then buy the rest of his older stuff, then somebody kidnap him Misery-style and make him crank out the comics. Not really though, as that probably wouldn’t be his best work and we live in a world where I actually have to point out that I’m not serious about kidnapping the guy, but I am absolutely serious about buying all his stuff. Or getting it from a library, although you’re certain to have a little more respect for late fees after reading this…