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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780743482479
ISBN number: 0743482476
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 544
Printing Date: March 28, 2006
Publishing house: Pocket
Sale Popularity Level: 263394
Studio: Pocket
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Product Description:
Packed with 'juicy nuggets of bibliophile gold' (Booklist), this irresistibly suspenseful bestseller traces the mark of murder inside the world of rare books.
Assessing a book's value is Denver cop-turned-bookseller Cliff Janeway's expertise. But even a pro like Janeway could be supremely challenged by certain signed very first editions. When is an autograph authentic? How can forgeries appear to be so convincingly real? The same questions apply, it seems, to a murder investigation in tiny Paradise, Colorado. Janeway agrees to help his lover, attorney Erin D'Angelo, determine if Erin's estranged childhood friend killed her husband -- or was her confession designed to protect her troubled young son? Then Janeway discovers the dead man's books: an impressive collection that may house some real gems. But it's not their financial worth that draws Janeway deeper into the case of deadly small-town secrets -- it's the hunger for peeling back layers of deception to reveal the genuine sign of the book. And in a case of cold-blooded murder, truth is a priceless commodity.
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Rated by buyers 
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"The Sign of the Book" by John Dunning, © 2005
It is unusual to any story about a bookseller. At least this is a mystery with an ex-cop as a bookseller, so it does rhyme with itself. Set in Colorado, you just have to imagine the scenery and love the writing. There is a bit of hard cop making life hard, but being where it should stop by the hero, justly. We should all be so heroic and capable.
This is a sad book of deception and using a child's gifts for profit and people being killed. The child, Jerry, is autistic and is caught up in this very grisly tale.
As in a lot of these potboilers, everyone is wonderful and intelligent and does everything perfectly, the story comes out for the best.
Rated by buyers -
Okay, for a person who is a book fanatic what could be better than a book about a book dealer?? This series is a real winner. Good stories with enough twists to keep the reader interested right to the end. Lots of tidbits about the book business too which is always a plus just in case I win the lottery and buy that book store I always wanted.
Rated by buyers -
I really enjoyed this book by John Dunning. I found that once I had started I couldn't put the book down. As usual it was full of surprises right up until the end. That's what I like the most about this Bookman's series. It always keeps me guessing. There wasn't as much information this time about the book industry, and for me that was something that I missed, but the story is captivating just the same. We have Cliff and his lady-love in a small town called Paradise in Colorado in late fall and early winter (right up to Christmas). Both are trying to help an old friend of Erin's who has been charged with the murder of her husband. Cliff follows the books as usual, and tries to piece together what happened on that fateful day. Janeway is as usual as real as they come. His character is so strong and yet so vulnerable. This is a wonderful series.
Rated by buyers 
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I normally don't read books like this one. You know, pop-crime dramas in the vein of Patterson or Grisham or any of the other horde of authors who read like they are trying to write a plot outline for a blockbuster movie rather than a good engaging mystery. But I am a former resident of Denver and a current bookseller myself so I thought that I would give this a try. Stupid, stupid me.
Others have given an intricate plot summary (of what little plot there is) so another surely isn't necessary. Suffice it to say that about forty pages into the story, I tossed the book down and told my wife in disgust, "Real people, even fictional "real people," don't act like this. People don't TALK like this." And they don't. The writing is bland, simple and cliche. The plot is marred by sub-plot after sub-plot that takes the story nowhere. The main character is supposed to be an intelligent, intuitive book dealer but he is so busy being a tough guy intimidator, spouting one liner after one liner, that he comes off as being terribly unauthentic. And the leaps of logic Janeway takes--astounding. He gets a vague feeling that something isn't right so he follows his hunch and in true Hardy Boy fashion, this is the thing moves the story along. He is almost psychic in his powers of deduction. And also fantastically lucky as, just when things have stalled, something miraculously happens to give our hero another angle on his case. So what if most of the things that happen turn out to be supurfluous. So what if the mystery fizzles out into an ideal (read unrealistic) resolution. Because, wait for it, there is a twist ending tacked on to give the whole messy debacle a tension fraught conclusion. Were you expecting anything less? Of course not, because it is the staple of bad TV police melodramas everywhere. And this is what I relate the book to the closest. An hour long episode of a mildly interesting TV show. Except it takes more than an hour to read. And it isn't quite as good.
My recommendation. Skip it. Read a mystery writer with more bite and more ability to suspend disbelief in a more powerful and realistic way. John D. MacDonald comes to mind. Anything by Dick Francis. Maybe some classic crime noir. Heck, even the Hardy Boys is probably deeper fare than this.
Rated by buyers -
Other reviews ding "Sign of the Book" for a langorous and almost-leads-nowhere subplot. I enjoyed the whole ride and I think the subplot sets up the surprise ending quite nicely. Dunning's mash-up of the used book and rare book world with murder and mayhem works nicely again, in all because Cliff Janeway is such a believable mash-up of ex-cop turned book dealer. He does have flaws, he does get brusque and tough, and he can square off with the toughest out there. My one problem here (minor issue) was the one-note, small-town-tough, jerk-cop character. Just too much of an easy enemy and his protestations from the witness stand, near the end, didn't seem plausible. But the shudders from the boy's drawings and the stunning revelation from the "death room" easily outweighed this flaw. A terrific ride in a Colorado mountain town. People who enjoy Cliff Janeway might also enjoy meeting a fellow fictional Coloradoan, Allison Coil. Antler Dust
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