The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom

Author:Ian Sansom
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Mystery & Detective - General, Detective and mystery stories, Jews, Mystery & Detective, Librarians, Fiction - Mystery, Theft, Detective, General, Fiction, Traveling libraries, Suspense, Ireland, Mystery fiction, Jews - Ireland, English Mystery & Suspense Fiction
ISBN: 9780060822507
Publisher: New York : Harper, [2006].
Published: 2006-12-19T22:00:00+00:00

11

Israel was not exactly feeling welcome anywhere–not at the farm, not in Tumdrum, not in fact on the whole of the island of Ireland generally, which had not turned out to be the place he had imagined it might be, and if his father had been alive, he'd have called him and told him so. As it was, he'd called his mother a few times, but he didn't like to tell her exactly how he was getting on, in case she said, 'I told you so.' He kept on calling Gloria, but she was always too busy to talk:

'Hello?' he'd say.

'—.'

'It's me.'

'—.'

'Israel.'

'—.'

'Yeah, sure. I'll call you later.'

'—.'

'Yeah. Fine.'

'—.'

'No, that's fine. Yeah. OK. Bye. Bye.'

He missed her. She didn't seem to be missing him.

He was feeling pretty alone, then, in this godforsaken wasteland, and he most certainly did not expect to find himself feeling welcome in church of all places, but it was strange, he didn't have a problem being here now, in Tumdrum First Presbyterian; there was a Second, also, apparently, according to Mr Devine, and a Third and a Fourth, and if they were all like this then Israel felt he could maybe reconsider his position on the Christian Church, if not indeed on Christianity as a whole. Presbyterians might as well have been theosophists as far as Israel was aware, and they may have practised child sacrifice and believed in every kind of impossible thing, but he liked their style.

The big double church doors had been wide open when he arrived in town and wedged the mobile library in the nearest on-street parking space, just nudging the kerb, and there may have been a slight bump with the car behind, but nothing major, no lasting damage, and nobody seemed to notice so nobody needed to know.

And then he checked in his wing mirrors and leapt out of the van and ran inside the church, really sprinted–which was quite a feat, given the state of his old brown brogues and those pinchy combat trousers of Brownie's, and the amount of potatoes he'd been having to eat recently to make up for the lack of any alternative vegetables of any kind or any non-meat protein. He ran as fast as he could, under the circumstances; the last thing he needed was people stopping him and trying to borrow library books; anyone might have thought he was a librarian.

There'd been no sign of the map of Tumdrum in the post from Amazon.co.uk, or indeed of any post arriving for him at the Devines' whatsoever and he'd decided that before setting out on any more wild-goose chases to Ballygullable–Ballygullable, God–or anywhere else, he'd try the Reverend Roberts at First Presbyterian, who Minnie believed might have a map and who might be able to help him out.

Inside, Tumdrum First Presybterian was a root-bare kind of a church which looked as though the Reformation had just happened, about half an hour ago, and people had just been in with their lime and whitewash and

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