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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9781416523390
ISBN number: 1416523391
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 528
Printing Date: March 27, 2007
Publishing house: Pocket
Sale Popularity Level: 61473
Studio: Pocket
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
In another enthralling bestseller by 'master yarn spinner' (Chicago Sun-Times) John Dunning, rare book dealer and relentless private eye Cliff Janeway unravels a deadly plot marked by stolen classics and stable secrets.
When wealthy horse trainer H. R. Geiger dies, Denver bookman Cliff Janeway encounters the legacy of the man's wife, Candice, a true bookwoman who left behind an assortment of rare first-edition children's books. Sent to assess the collection, Janeway soon finds that several titles are missing, replaced by cheap reprints -- while other hugely expensive pieces remain. Why would a thief take one priceless book and leave an equally valuable volume on the shelf? Suspecting foul play, Janeway follows the trail of Candice's shadowy past to California's Golden Gate and Santa Anita racetracks, where he signs on as a racehorse hot walker. Eavesdropping on the chatter among the hands, he doesn't like what he hears. And when he goes to the house where Candice died to look for answers, Janeway finds much more than he bargained for.
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Rated by buyers 
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Wow -- what a huge disappointment. John Dunning is such a great story teller. I have all his books on my shelf, but this was a huge dud. I was really looking forward to reading it -- but it was so incredibly boring that I had to put it down. I just couldn't trudge through it. It felt REALLY contrived. Very sad. :(
Rated by buyers 
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Fans of previous "Bookman" novels by John Dunning will be equally captivated by The Bookwoman's Last Fling: A Cliff Janeway Novel (Cliff Janeway Novels). This offering is just as witty, literate and informative a tome as his previous ventures. This time out the reader not only gets a lesson in the appraisal and valuation of rare juvenile books (from Winnie the Pooh to Nancy Drew) but we are also treated to an inside look at the racing game (seems Dunning worked behind the scenes at a few racetracks in his youth and is more than will to share his knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes at the track).
Once again, former cop turned rare bookseller/appraiser, Cliff Janeway, becomes embroiled in a fascinating mystery when he is hired by the majordomo of one H. R. Geiger (noted horseman who has recently passed on) to evaluate the a rare and valuable collection of very first edition children's books that had belonged to Geigers late wife, Candice. Janeways job is to determine not only the value of the collection but also to ascertain if any of the collection is missing or has been tampered with. The missing book angle of the mystery turns out to be just the tip of this iceberg.
There are a multitude of questions to be answered and horses to be tended. There is the question of what really happened to Geigers late wife (was her death an accident as had been reported, or was she cleverly murdered?). Is Geiger's daughter Sharon, a protector of abused horses, in imminent danger (since she is the owner of one half of her mothers valuable book collection). Are Sharon's half-brothers as unprincipled and dangerous as they appear?
This mystery has as many potential suspects as a purple onion has layers but Janeway is up to the task of following the clues and peeling away those layers. There are book collectors, horse trainers, stablehands, horse owners, and dysfunctional family members to choose from and Janeway discovers that the culprit will do anything (including turning Janeway into a "crispy critter") to achieve his (or her) ultimate goal.
Readers will find Janeway a hard character to forget, and Bookwoman's Last Fling an engrossing page turner. So saddle up and get ready for a great ride.
Rated by buyers 
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Reading over the reviews here I see that many people are disappointed in this book. I'm surprised because I liked it better than some of his other books and I'm kind of glad he got rid of that girlfriend. Her character just didn't work for me. I won't be surprised if his subsequent girlfriend is from Idaho.
I know nothing about horse racing so reading about some of what goes on in the stable area was new and interesting to me.
And I think the person who said that the author didn't play fair in giving clues as to who the killer was soon enough is wrong. I thought there were plenty of good clues. I figured it out long before I usually do.
All-in-all I liked it. I liked the characters, the settings, and the ending. No, it doesn't deserve 4 or 5 stars, but it is a nice read.
Rated by buyers -
I was excited to find a nice very first edition hardcover copy of John Dunning's The Bookwoman's Last Fling at a bargain table price a few weeks ago. Knowing how popular the previous four Cliff Janeway novels had been with book collectors did make me wonder at the time why such a nice copy of this 2006 novel was still available in mid-2008. Now I think that I can answer that question.
Cliff Janeway, bibliophile ex-cop turned bookstore owner/detective, finds himself in Idaho at the behest of the executor of the estate of H.R. Geiger, a wealthy racehorse owner, in order to appraise the dead man's book collection. Geiger's wife, who has been in her grave for two decades, had been an avid collector of juvenile fiction and she left behind a collection of some of the finest very first editions of their type known to exist.
Janeway is quick, however, to notice that the collection is not what it appears to be at very first glance. Rather, it is a combination of beautiful very first editions set along side much more common later printings of other books of the genre. This is no surprise to the man who has asked him to appraise the collection because he already knows that many of the books have been stolen from the shelves and replaced by much less valuable editions. Janeway also realizes almost immediately that he and Junior Willis, the estate executor, have a tremendous personality conflict and that there is little chance he will ever be able to work for the man despite how badly he wants to study the collection's finer books.
While waiting around to see if he and Junior can come to an agreement about the job, Janeway makes a fateful visit to the deceased woman's daughter who is in possession of fifty percent of her mother's books. There he learns that the daughter has long suspected that her mother had been murdered and he agrees to work for her, not only to discover who has been stealing from the collection, but also to determine whether or not her mother was murdered and, if so, who did it.
Janeway's search leads him into the world of California horseracing and the bulk of the story takes place inside the racetracks where he is convinced the killer will be found. John Dunning has lived and worked in that world and he writes comfortably and capably about the experiences of those who work behind the scenes to make sure that all of that expensive horse flesh is ready to run when the gates fly open. He writes about it so well, and so comfortably, in fact, that The Bookwoman's Last Fling reads far more like a Dick Francis novel than it does the subsequent Cliff Janeway novel, ensuring disappointment for Dunning's bibliophile fan base, especially those of us who are not particularly fans of Dick Francis mysteries even when they are penned by Dick Francis himself.
But even more irksome to me, personally, was what appears to be Dunning's decision to play unfairly with his readers. This is, after all, a mystery and mystery writers know that their readers try to solve the mystery along with the fictional detective working the case. When all the provided clues end up leading nowhere because the murderer turns out to be a minor character thrown into the mix near the end of the book and the detective has nothing more to go on himself than a "feeling" about that character, the covenant between mystery writer and mystery reader has been broken. Such is the case here.
Cliff Janeway is an interesting character and I probably won't let my disappointment with The Bookwoman's Last Fling keep me from reading the subsequent installment of his story, if there is one. But now I will definitely come to that one a little more skeptical about what I might find within its pages.
Rated by buyers 
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I love the Bookman series by John Dunning. This one had a lot about horse racing. Not a field of interest of mine but that said, I still look forward to the subsequent Bookman. Until I read the book I was worried that this was the last in the series based on the title.
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