In 1917 Christopher Morley published Parnassus on Wheels a love letter to the art of bookselling. Its suspenseful sequel The Haunted Bookshop finds his beloved characters married and still in love with both mystery and literature.
Set in a lovingly evoked Brooklyn just after the end of World War I The Haunted Bookshop cleverly juxtaposes a pair of middle-aged bookshop owners and two young lovers with a nest of German saboteurs complete with mysterious clues red herrings blushing romance derring-do a desperate race to the rescue and an explosion. More important the novel is an eloquent hymn to the bookseller?s trade and a fervent plea for the revivifying and redemptive power of literature. The unifying thread of this book and indeed of the life and work of its author is its passionate avowal: all that the world and everybody in it needs is a good book.
