The Bookplate Burglary

Every rare book carries a history. Someone has been pasting over this one.When a battered nineteenth-century travel volume arrives at The Lantern & Quill, Charlie Vale finds three ownership labels layered inside the cover. The newest belongs to Julian Calder, Bramblewick's most respected collector. The oldest belongs to a refugee family whose library vanished after the war. The label between them-the one that makes the whole transfer look legitimate-is a forgery.The timing could not be worse. Bramblewick's Winter Rare Book Fair is opening, Julian is its principal patron, and he has promised that before it ends he'll reveal which volumes in his collection were taken from displaced families. He never gets the chance. Julian is found dead in the old freight-house ticket office while six rare books disappear from the secure room next door.But the theft is stranger than it looks: the burglar left behind books worth far more-just without the same false label hidden beneath their owners' names. Aunt Wren once belonged to a quiet network tracing stolen libraries home. To name a killer, Charlie must reconstruct a chain of ownership built from pressure, silence, and respectable paperwork-and decide whether a book can be legally owned while still belonging somewhere else.The Lantern & Quill Mysteries, Book Four. A rare-book cozy about provenance, restitution, and the cost of looking the other way. Reads as a standalone.Perfect for fans of Kate Carlisle's Bibliophile Mysteries, Jenn McKinlay's Library Lover's Mysteries, and Ellery Adams's Book Retreat Mysteries.