Death of a Bookseller

A disaffected, true crime-obsessed bookseller develops a dangerous obsession with a colleague. Roach would rather be listening to the latest episode of her favorite true crime podcast than assisting the boring and predictable customers at her local branch of the bookstore Spines, where she’s worked her entire adult life. A serious true crime junkie, Roach looks down her nose at the pumpkin-spice-latte-drinking casual fans who only became interested in the genre once it got trendy. But when Laura, a pretty and charismatic children’s bookseller, arrives to help rejuvenate the struggling bookstore branch, Roach recognizes in her an unexpected kindred spirit. Despite their common interest in true crime, Laura keeps her distance from Roach, resisting the other woman’s overtures of friendship. Undeterred, Roach learns everything she can about her new colleague, eventually uncovering Laura’s traumatic family history. When Roach realizes that she may have come across her very own true crime story, interest swiftly blooms into a dangerous obsession. A darkly funny suspense novel, Death of a Bookseller raises ethical questions about the fervor for true crime and how we handle stories that don’t belong to us. **** Quotes by Alice Slater, Death of a Bookseller - “Reading is a way of life for some customers, the kind of customers who buy more than they read, who behave as though ‘bookworm’ is as inherent as their blood type or their astrological sign.” - “I just wish I could have found my way here without throwing petrol over my entire life and setting it on fire.’ ‘You had to rest at rock bottom,’ she replied, ‘to gather the strength to swim back up to the surface.” The instant Sunday Times bestseller! Longlisted for the authors’ club best first novel award 2024.