The Bad Book Affair

The Bad Book Affair
By Ian Sansom
Fourth Estate £7.99, 358 pages
FT Bookshop price: £6.39

Israel Armstrong, the amateur detective at the centre of Sansom’s series of comedy mysteries, is an unlikely character: an ennui-stricken Jewish vegetarian domiciled in Tumdrum, a tiny village in Northern Ireland. Israel runs the local mobile library, and becomes embroiled in scandal after lending Philip Roth’s American Pastoral – from the restricted “unshelved” category – to the young daughter of a local MP. When the girl goes missing, Israel is held responsible. He must find her to clear his name.

There isn’t really much of a mystery here and no crime to solve – a good thing too, because Israel is a hapless sleuth. But what the novel lacks in suspense it makes up for in wry humour and astute observation. Humdrum Tumdrum is a place where the women are strong, the men good-looking, and the librarians itinerant. Sansom’s bittersweet vignettes evoke the joys and frustrations of backwoods life.