In this “utterly unforgettable” debut (Catherine Ryan Howard), a disaffected, true crime-obsessed bookseller develops a dangerous obsession with a colleague.

Roach would rather be listening to the latest episode of her favorite true crime podcast than assisting the boring and predictable customers at her local branch of the bookstore Spines, where she’s worked her entire adult life. A serious true crime junkie, Roach looks down her nose at the pumpkin-spice-latte-drinking casual fans who only became interested in the genre once it got trendy. But when Laura, a pretty and charismatic children’s bookseller, arrives to help rejuvenate the struggling bookstore branch, Roach recognizes in her an unexpected kindred spirit.

Despite their common interest in true crime, Laura keeps her distance from Roach, resisting the other woman’s overtures of friendship. Undeterred, Roach learns everything she can about her new colleague, eventually uncovering Laura’s traumatic family history. When Roach realizes that she may have come across her very own true crime story, interest swiftly blooms into a dangerous obsession.

A darkly funny suspense novel, Death of a Bookseller raises ethical questions about the fervor for true crime and how we handle stories that don’t belong to us.

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I am a “Roach”. I like dark books. I was fascinated by magic and the occult and read all the books I could find about the psychology of serial killers, abnormal minds and the makings of a murderer. I’m not the only “Roach” out there. Wearing a black t-shirt, purple hair that needs a re-dye, fascinated in the snails as pets when everyone else has a cat or a dog.

I liked the book Roach. She was unique, she has personality and if I were a man, I would probably go out with her and get to hear all about her interests which are definitely not mainstream. As a fellow woman, I would probably befriend her and go watch “Murder Girls” on tour and hear about the latest murder podcasts, just like Lisa and Marge Simpson in the Murder podcast episode.

I have a large collection of horror books. I despise frilly books that talk about self-improvement and following your heart. I don’t like Christmas movies and songs. I like dark nights and not talking to a lot of people.

But I think I am “Laura” too.

I have a diverse reading taste. I will try something at least once. I keep my books well read and with writing on the side for things that impressed me. I like poetry and I try to write some. I love evenings when I can curl with a glass of “(not)” wine and immerse myself fully in a new read.

I like skirts and matching shoes.

I like to go out and have nice smelling candles at home.

I like to socialize and meet friends for drinks after work.

And I can see why I can’t ever be a “Laura” and a “Roach” at the same time. The two personalities are so distinct and so polar opposite, they could never work.

So this book, The Death of a Bookseller really worked for me. You get to be both Laura and Roach in alternate chapters and you can see how each sees each-other. Laura thinks of Roach as desperate and smelly and disgusting and can’t get further away from her and her obsessions with serial killers. Roach sees Laura as a friend, a common kindred soul, who has understood serial killers enough to write poetry about their victims and read about famous cases. Roach wants to be like Laura. Wants to try out menthols, salad, her books, her bed, her flat for size. She’s a bit on the stalkerish side and probably hasn’t had anyone in her life to tell her it’s not OK to be this obsessed with other people. Not even her own boyfriend, Sam, can make her feel this intense need to be near.

I fear for Laura, and I hate the way Laura treats Roach. She’s cold, polite, just like any person would be with anyone they dislike and are forced to work alongside with. Roach sometimes hates Laura too because she thinks she’s too stuck up and definitely in love with a mediocre co-worker (her words). Laura is flawed too as she is chasing unavailable men to make up for the lack of fatherly love in her life. She wants Eli, who is in a committed relationship and scummy enough to flirt back to her drunken texts about sleeping together.

Laura is a drunk. She doesn’t know she’s a drunk and even when her manager kindly asks her to think of her liver, she still asks to go out for a wine taste after work. Roach drinks too, but nothing as refined as wine. She’s a cider girl and the sourer the fruits, the better.

I like them both for their best selves (dedicated to being bookworms, researching, recommending, diving deep into). I don’t like either of them for their worst selves (stalkerish, back-stabbing, bad-mouthing, lying, aggressive, cheating and worst of all – drunks).

The book works.

You become intimate connoisseur of two lives. You get to know what’s inside a bookshop. The silly questions people ask. The customer support horror stories. The shelving, the selling, the dead hours, the rush before school start.

You get to see London pubs and night life.

You get to explore British serial killers – who are not as famous as their American counter parts and not as “sensational” as Roach puts it.

You get to see the two women’s destinies entwined and swirling quicker and quicker to a final end – all at the Christmas party.

Fiercely original and deeply disturbing, Death of a Bookseller is a dark masterpiece of grief and obsession – it will work its way under your skin like a splinter and stay there. This is a book you simply can’t put down

Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street

I loved it. We know a bookseller dies because that’s how it starts. But both of them are fitting the bill. So who will it be? Why? What triggers it? I won’t spoil it.