Recently read: Ian Sansom’s The Case of the Missing Books

This is an odd book about a particularly unappealing protagonist in a setting that, like the hapless Israel Armstrong, hovers between tongue-in-cheek and outright farce. Armstrong, a Jewish librarian whose jobs have been one long list of dreariness, moves from London to a small Irish town to take the position of librarian. Instead of a welcoming committee, he finds the library shut down, an overweight Anglo-Asian woman who holds a government position that, among other duties, covers the library, a testy van driver, dreadful coffee, and hundreds of empty library shelves. Good, but skip it if you’re in the mood for thrilling suspense or a slice of real life.