Matthew Sullivan

When Joey Molina kills himself in the Bright Ideas bookstore's upper room, clerk Lydia's life comes unglued. As she untangles the mystery of Joey's suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood.

A Novel

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

LeAnnza

Claire

So good, really fast. I’m going to miss Lydia!

Patricia Nelson

I read this book as part of a book club, and really enjoyed it! It's been a while since I read a good mystery and this one kept me guessing. The author's writing and storytelling made this a quick read and I liked the diversity of the characters, in background and personality and socioeconomic situation. This novel does a nice job of presenting a Denver that is on the cusp of gentrification of part of the city in the early 90s maybe? I would love to spend some more time there. The mystery, however, is what makes this book so good. There are plot twists and things I didn't see coming. The other thing worth mentioning is the ending. Sometimes a story will have a long and intricate build up to an ending that is lacking - almost as if an editor said, "wrap it up this week" or "chop out 100 pages" to the author. This book is very well done in that respect. There is a mystery. It is brought to a resolution but in a complete manner that leaves the reader satisfied but without whiplash or questions remaining.

This book kept me on my toes till the very end. There were so many twists and turns and I literally couldn’t put it down.

Megan McCarthy

Yvette

I forgot how I stumbled upon this book, but I’m so glad I did. I THOUGHT a few of the twists were predictable but was presently surprised that I was wrong. This quickly turned into a page-turning thriller with momentary slow burns that I didn’t mind at all. It would have been nice to have more character development with some of the (very interesting and quirky) characters. Would definitely read more books from this author. 10/10 would recommend for book lovers and mystery lovers alike.

What do you do when the life you've carefully built for yourself comes apart? Lydia Smith lives a quiet life, spent in the company of her colleagues and customers at the bookstore where she works. But when Joey Molina, a young and mysterious regular, hangs himself in the bookstore and leaves Lydia secret messages hidden in the pages of his books, her world starts to unravel. Why did Joey do it? What did he know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?

Jacqueline Englund

First of all I‘d like to say, that this book had not gotten the attention it deserves...not only is this a brilliantly crafted mystery....but it is also a deep dive into the human soul. An amazing, multilayered story, set in the midst of books!

Celeste Richardson

Full review now posted!

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Have I mentioned that I love books about books?

Any time I can find a fictional character who loves books as passionately as I do, who can pen romantic ballads to the smell of aged pages and new ink and the heft of holding a world in your hands, I’m sold. My favorite settings on the planet are libraries and forgotten bookshops and homes filled so tightly with books that the uninitiated feel claustrophobic upon entering. When books feel alive and vibrant and important within the pages of one of their kin, I am ecstatic. I have this problem, though. When a book about books proclaims its love for the written word in its early pages but is then distracted by other supposedly more pressing matters, like romance or mystery or murder, I always feel just the teensiest bit let down. Not that I don’t still enjoy the story, mind you; it’s just that I end up scanning for more mentions of books, and those mentions get fewer and farther between segments with more action.

*Insert long-suffering sigh here.*

This was a fun little book, with more bookish mentionings than many others in the “books about books” subgenre. Here, books were loved and abused at the same time, cherished and mutilated, loved for the words they held and carved into submission so that they would serve as a cipher to deliver someone else’s message. The mystery around which the plot focused was twofold, and I enjoyed watching those two aspects spin closer and closer to one another until they finally met in a decently satisfying conclusion. But, as with many books about books, the further into the story I got the less present books felt, which was disappointing.

“All words are masks, and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.” —Steven Millhauser, “August Eschenburg”

For the most part, I enjoyed the book, but I could never connect fully to the main character or the main supporting characters. The most sympathetic character was dead, and the most likable living characters were secondary characters with minor rolls. I understand that our main protagonist had lived through a nightmare as a child, but her decision making skills left much to be desired, in my opinion. She sometimes came across as petty and hateful to those closest to her, while in the same scene sweetly taking care of her BookFrogs, homeless men and other social outcasts who saw the Bright Ideas Bookstore as their true home. Lydia is a wonderful bookseller and caretaker of broken people, but is kind of terrible at relationships with people who don’t need her help. 

Overall, this was a fun little book, especially if you like whodunnits and books through which you can feel the authors love for the written word. This was the author’s debut novel, and I thought it was well done. I do feel the need to point out to fantasy fans that this is MATTHEW J. Sullivan, not MICHAEL J. Sullivan of Riyria fame; so don’t go into this book expecting elves or dragons. I feel that the plot and setting and writing style within this book will appeal to a broad audience. Enjoy, book lovers! 

Original review can be found at Booknest.

Amanda Rocha

The twist was good, it kept me guessing. HOWEVER.

 I have heard the jokes about how men writing women characters get it so wrong ... I have never encountered it, until now. From the way he describes sex as "penis-hopping", to the way he describes a mother's love as "tyrannical -- occupying her heart, but not threatening her dinner party" ... everything this author wrote about the thought process of his female characters was BAD. I hated it, and I totally get the jokes now.

Moray Lyle McIntosh

Another example that just goes to show the value of a well-designed cover because, apart from the bookshop setting, there is not much in a contemporary mystery and crime novel that would usually draw my attention. Fortunately Matthew Sullivan has written an engaging page-turner that showcases his ability to craft a slow, pot-boiler of a puzzle with a love of books and an eye for detail that makes some of his characters funny and poignant. The premise is simple, a regular but isolated patron of the Bright Ideas bookstore commits suicide on the premises and is discovered by Lydia, a store clerk with a mysterious past. Devastated by the experience Lydia is left reeling when it emerges that Joey has left her all of his worldly belongings, including a number of oddly defaced books as well as a link to a traumatic event in her own childhood.

The structure, as we pass back and forth between Lydia's present and her future, adds depth and mystery as details slowly emerge to reveal two deeply entwined stories that threaten to destabilise the anonymous life Lydia has built and her long-term relationship with long-term partner David. The mystery of Lydia's secret and bloody past, the identity of the "Hammerman" is less interesting, and certainly less surprising, than many of the other events and relationships that Sullivan constructs. The real hooks of the novel are more peripheral to the violent acts at its heart; the sad story of Joey's lonely and isolated and the deterioration of Lydia's once-close relationship with her father, Joey's only real friendship with older man Lyle. These stories in particular reveal a skill in drawing complex characters and their interactions with each other and the world. There's a sympathy for those occupying a marginalised place in society with Joey in particular providing the story with a (broken) heart that is unusual and welcome in this genre.

My only major issue was the relationship between Lydia and her boyfriend and her childhood friend Raj. At the beginning these were nicely drawn and developed but as the novel progressed the turns they took were increasingly artificial. By the end it seemed like the character of David had become an obstacle to the way Sullivan imagined his ending (view spoiler)[with Lydia and Raj as a couple (hide spoiler)] and the resolution of the situation was abrupt, clumsy and out of keeping with the rest of the novel. Despite this I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this novel. Sullivan has an excellent grasp of pace and structure and while some of the coincidences that occur challenge the willing suspension of disbelief there's enough heart and suspense and style to make it thoroughly entertaining.

Wow! This was a good, surprising book. It's less of a mystery than it is about a woman's journey to find answers. I was moved to almost tears! I definitely recommend this for mystery lovers.

Marie Rogowski

Loved the setting, the characters, the style of writing. I am not much of a thriller-fan, but the mystery part was catchy.

Anastaciya

uh, people are so messed up, that's true.
This book... at first it was hard for me to get into it, then it got quite interesting, but then I got disappointed. a lot of little details I didn't like :/ and the characters' decisions, motives all got very annoying.
I'm unsure about this one.

Tyler Rodrigues

3.5 stars 

There were some twists in here I didn't see coming but all in all and average read

Zoe Smolen

Oh man I LOVED this book! I mean LOVED. I was pretty indifferent about it when I picked it up. It was the book that kept popping up so I felt obliged to read it, but I'm glad I felt that way. This is one of the more unique books I've read lately, yet one that still manages to be excellent. 

Sullivan gives enough twists that some you can figure out and some will still leave you surprised. There is mystery upon mystery and each one has a unique plot in the story.

Thanks to Netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this “intriguingly dark, twisty” (Kirkus Reviews) debut novel from an award-winning short story writer. Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves. But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia? As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left. “Both charming and challenging” (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review), Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a “multi-generational tale of abandonment, desperation, and betrayal…inventive and intricately plotted” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Adriana Pierce

A little slow to start. About 150 pages in, the book started to grab my attention. A good, quick read murder mystery novel that kept me guessing until the end. Great book for a casual and quick read.

Shreerag Plakazhi

Meh. The writing was fine, littered with cliches. I guessed the crime literally 60% into the book, without much effort. The characters were dry and the mystery itself was kinda boring.

Also don't make the mistake I made and buy this because of the title. The title or the bookstore has literally nothing to do with the book. Nothing.

Laura

This was another, slightly impulsive pick up. While I liked the plotline right from the start, what really sold me was the Amazon reviews describing it as being "surprisingly twisted". I like twisted, and have an extremely high twisted threshold when it comes to books. 

And I admit, I was a tad let down by the twisted factor. It wasn't really that bad, though why people would think it was pretty disturbing, given that the main plotline revolves around the hammer murder of an entire family, including a ten year old girl. There's also the graphic hanging of a twenty-something year old guy which the book opens with. 

I liked all the main characters- Lydia, Raj, and especially Joey, though I think my favorite character was Lyle, Joey's best friend. He cracked me up, and I could picture him perfectly, an intelligent yet eccentric rich old guy, whose mannerisms and way of speaking made me think, oddly enough, of Jim Williams of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fame. Though a less murderous version, of course. I wished he was in the book more. 

I also found Joey, the man whose death was the catalyst for the plot. Without ever knowing him I found him endearing, and with the little snippets that Lydia gave us of him I was able to visualize him surprisingly well and actually felt empathy for him the more his story progressed. 

Continue reading this review on my blog here: https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore A Novel

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