BOOK REVIEW: The Book Supremacy by Kate Carlisle @KateCarlisle @BerkleyPub @BerkleyMystery #TheBookSupremacy #cozymystery

A cozy mystery series based around old books and spies is a pretty hard-to-turn-down combination! Kate Carlisle’s The Book Supremacy is a really fun mystery that has vintage elements in a modern setting. With outstanding characters a film-like feel, readers will have a fun time with this one!

About the Book

Brooklyn Wainwright and her new husband Derek are enjoying the last few days of their honeymoon in Paris experiencing the food, wine, and sites. While perusing the book stalls along the Seine, Brooklyn finds the perfect wedding gift for her former-MI6 husband—a beautiful first edition copy of vintage James Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me.

But soon after showing the book to Derek and an old colleague Ned who he bumped into on the street, Brooklyn notices a mysterious figure in a hooded sweatshirt watching them. Certain she is seeing things, Brooklyn does her best to put it out of her mind while they celebrate their last night in Paris.

Back in San Francisco, Brooklyn and Derek visit another old colleague of Derek’s Owen, who has retired and opened a spy shop. For the celebration, Owen asks to display the first edition James Bond novel—with proper security in place, of course. The book turns out to be worth quite a lot more than Brooklyn paid for it!

When Derek receives a mysterious letter informing him of Ned’s sudden death, and a break-in at the spy shop results in murder, Brooklyn and Derek realize more may be going on than meets the eye. And the key to it all may lay in the vintage spy novel Brooklyn purchased. Now, they must solve the mystery before anyone else ends up dead!

Reflection

I had so much fun with this cozy mystery—it felt very movie-like in away, with a mix of the authentic core-cast characters and a few larger than life archetype characters that made their debut. From the first chapter where Brooklyn realizes that French Toast is probably not referred to by the same name when you are in France, to the conversation overheard by a group of people explaining how they would plan different murders (they are writers)—there are lots of funny moments that kept this feeling light despite the dead bodies!

Brooklyn and Derek are sweet together, and despite Derek’s obvious connection to this case, this very much felt like Brooklyn’s mystery. There was a nice mix of Brooklyn’s story and the mystery itself. The book didn’t suffer from losing track of the mystery, though it did seem to take a bit for the action to pick up in the story. Once it did, this was quite exciting!

I really liked Brooklyn and Derek, and I found the side characters—both those that seem to be series regulars and those who were brought in just for this story—to be really interesting as well. The Jackals (mystery writers that frequent the spy shop café) were a delight, and I also enjoyed Ned, Owen, and a few others who I won’t name so I don’t spoil anything. I also loved reading about Brooklyn’s work restoring the old books. I think every book lover will find the process and care that goes into piecing a book back together to be fascinating!

I’m guessing that if you are a fan of cozy mysteries, you won’t mind a bit of suspension of disbelief, and this mystery does ask for that a bit. It is so entertaining and it is grounded enough in reality to make it a fun read with great settings! Also—fans of escape rooms and puzzles will find the spy shop escape room descriptions to be a lot of fun. I know I did!

Thank you to Berkley for my copy. Opinions are my own.