Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, Maeve Kerrigan, Harry Bosch, Inspector Morse, Holmes and Watson, and me. Yes, I shall be coming soon to a crime bookshelf near you. There will be movie adaptations. I’d like Saoirse Ronan to play me. We don’t look alike but she was brilliant in “Ladybird”. Perhaps we could cast Timothée Chalamet as Alex. Hmm, there’s an idea.

The point being, I am a detective genius who is massively underestimated by my employers, the police, and society in general. We need a Book Signal to light up the skies above Castle Bailey to call me when a library crisis occurs. Broken binding, illicit eating at the study tables, last minute events to curate and advertise - send up the Book Signal and I’d arrive in a flash.

I’ll skip...

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