I have said here before that Bibliomysteries are one of many subgenera that are always in my wheel-house. Books, bookstores, libraries, book collecting make the perfect subject and setting for mysteries.

David Bell’s stand-alone, short story, “Rides a Stranger” is a great example of the Bibliomystery sub-genre.

Don and his father shared a love of books, a love that ended at the title page. Don is an Assistant Professor of English Literature and loves Literary Classics. His father on the other hand loved Thrillers, Westerns, and Pulp paperbacks.

At his father’s funeral, Don is approached by a rare book dealer, a peculiar man named Lou Caledonia. Lou tells Don he wants him to come by his store because he has information about Don’s father, a man Don never fully knew or understood. (Do sons ever really know or understand their fathers?)

When Don arrives at Lou’s cramped, book-lined shop he find the dealer’s body in the basement. Now Don is now trapped in a narrative far more mysterious than the any of Pulp novels he had always scorned.

Rides a Stranger” is a part of the Bibliomysteries Series, a series of stand-alone short stories and novellas published by The Mysterious Bookshop. I have read a number of them and have enjoyed them all.