In the second novel in Valin’s Harry Stoner private eye series set in Cincinnati, Ohio, our valiant intrepid detective takes on the case of the library vandals. Well, as you might be familiar with the broken window theory that if you let things go, criminals feel free to do what they want, the crimes here did not stop with vandalizing art books in a library. But, in any case, Harry is hired by the head librarian to track down whoever has been taking a pruning shears to rare art books.
The opening of the book is quite amusing as Harry narrates how the service desk hadn’t changed since the suburban libraries were just plaster walls, wood shelving, and quiet signs. “They were still little old ladies in floral print dresses and high-topped shoes, wearing too much lipstick or none at all. Wispy gray-heads meant to lean together and gossip,” we are told. They all looked on as Harry went to Leon Ringold’s office where Harry meets Leon, who had all the makings of a “tetchy one,” and was one of “those angry little men who’ve never forgiven the rest of the world for looking down on them, as if a man’s stature were purely a matter of height.” Valin’s writing has such wonderful descriptions.
Harry ends up tag-teaming his work with Kate Davis, who was hired to do the library security and is sort of being replaced by Harry. Harry though finds that Kate is not like the little old ladies at the reception desk and is in fact quite pretty with a nice figure and becomes his partner in sleuthing and his romantic foil as well, replacing Jo the waitress from the Lime Pit, who disappeared into thin air towards the end of that book.
Of course, though, the story is not all about what happens between the library stacks and it is another journey by Harry through that dark underbelly of Cincinnati and the lowlife scum who are hiding in plain sight in the various trailer parks and corners.
Pulp, Crime, & Mystery Books 