Blue Octavo (1963)
John Blackburn
With a new introduction by Mike Ripley
Book Description
When bookseller James Roach is found dead after paying an exorbitant sum for Grey Boulders, a rare but apparently valueless volume on mountaineering, the police write it off as suicide. But his young colleague John Cain suspects foul play when he discovers the book is missing and that someone has been going to great lengths to obtain every copy of Grey Boulders in existence. Is it a case of some deranged collector driven to murder by his bibliomania, or is there some secret contained in the book that is worth killing for? It’s a race against time as Cain joins forces with egocentric adventurer J. Moldon Mott and beautiful heiress Julia Lent to solve the mystery. Can they stop the killer before he gets hold of the last remaining copy, or will one of them become his next victim?
A prolific author of thrillers and horror novels, John Blackburn (1923-1993) also managed a secondhand bookstore, and he draws on this background in Blue Octavo (1963), a clever and fast-paced tale set in the shady world of antiquarian bookselling. This edition features a new introduction by award-winning author and critic Mike Ripley.
John Blackburn
With a new introduction by Mike Ripley
Book Description
When bookseller James Roach is found dead after paying an exorbitant sum for Grey Boulders, a rare but apparently valueless volume on mountaineering, the police write it off as suicide. But his young colleague John Cain suspects foul play when he discovers the book is missing and that someone has been going to great lengths to obtain every copy of Grey Boulders in existence. Is it a case of some deranged collector driven to murder by his bibliomania, or is there some secret contained in the book that is worth killing for? It’s a race against time as Cain joins forces with egocentric adventurer J. Moldon Mott and beautiful heiress Julia Lent to solve the mystery. Can they stop the killer before he gets hold of the last remaining copy, or will one of them become his next victim?
A prolific author of thrillers and horror novels, John Blackburn (1923-1993) also managed a secondhand bookstore, and he draws on this background in Blue Octavo (1963), a clever and fast-paced tale set in the shady world of antiquarian bookselling. This edition features a new introduction by award-winning author and critic Mike Ripley.
reviews
‘[A] well-planned story ... thrilling ... persistently interesting.’ - Times Literary Supplement
‘Intelligent, well characterised murder mystery with expert secondhand book trade setting.’ - Maurice Richardson, The Observer
‘[A] stylish, genuinely chilling author ... He can be depended upon to sustain swift, sure, exciting, and absorbing stories ... undoubtedly one of England’s best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel.’ - St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers
‘An interesting ... case concerning a rare book which some madman is collecting at the rate of a murder per copy.’ - New York Times Book Review
‘Intelligent, well characterised murder mystery with expert secondhand book trade setting.’ - Maurice Richardson, The Observer
‘[A] stylish, genuinely chilling author ... He can be depended upon to sustain swift, sure, exciting, and absorbing stories ... undoubtedly one of England’s best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel.’ - St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers
‘An interesting ... case concerning a rare book which some madman is collecting at the rate of a murder per copy.’ - New York Times Book Review
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BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 1939140730 ISBN-13: 978-1939140739 $15.99 US, 152 pp. Trade paper Published 2013 |
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
John Blackburn was born in 1923 in the village of Corbridge, England, the second son of a clergyman. He started attending Haileybury College near London in 1937, but his education was interrupted by the onset of World War II; the shadow of the war, and that of Nazi Germany, would later play a role in many of his works. He served as a radio officer during the war in the Mercantile Marine from 1942 to 1945, and resumed his education afterwards at Durham University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1949. Blackburn taught for several years after that, first in London and then in Berlin, and married Joan Mary Clift in 1950. Returning to London in 1952, he took over the management of Red Lion Books.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.