Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Ah, this book is set at a fancy bookstore in the late 90's, maybe early naughts. Remember bookstores? There are still a few around so hug one today. The author really did work at the Tattered Cover in Denver so naturally this a mystery set well...at a bookstore just like that.  I wonder if he actually started this book in the late 90's and that's why its set then, because I feel like he really could have upped the nostalgia by adding more details. What details you ask?  Well, flip-phones, the Rachel haircut, hip-hugger corduroys (swish-swish), Snapple and a casual Radiohead reference. I mean lets just embrace it. One of my favorite things about Better Call Saul is the small details of 2002. Sounds like it was just yesterday but sadly it was not. Blast.   

I thought this book was ok but I will confess that I'm not a huge mystery person, I'll make an exception for an ultra British mystery. I was more interested in the bookstore patrons and employees of the bookstore which are not the main focus. I know when I worked at my three bookstores it was a revolving cast of characters. I had a former trumpet player manager that wouldn't stop talking (oral fixation apparently), a woman that when to a religious boarding school in Italy AND lived on a houseboat in Bermuda THEN she in her partner had desert tortoises in AZ. I had one owner that was into astrology and so he read my "chart" before he hired me--he said it was ok for me to come on board. He has since gone out of business.

I wasn't crazy about our protagonist and that's always going to be an issue so if you are a bibliophile and a mystery person then maybe you would like it. I do wish Michael Sullivan the best.  He's a former bookseller turned successful author. That, my friends, is like hope in a jar. Also, I love his author photo he looks soooo happy. The photographer must have shown him photos of cats in cute sweaters or something.

Lets drink a cocktail from the late 90's for nostalgia's sake: Cable Car: 2 ounces spiced rum, 1 ounce triple sec, 1/2 ounce lemon juice, 1/4 ounce simple syrup and one egg white (optional but will make it make it frothy). Shake it all up in the shaker and strain into a chilled glass. This sounds sweet and decadent. I don't remember the late 90's being that way but I was kind of broke back then--probably from my low pay working at the bookstores. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯