Death of a Bookseller - Alice Slater Audiobook

Written by Alice Slater
Read by Rachael Beresford, Sasha Higgins
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HighBridge
Release date: May 3, 2023
Duration: 11:35:05

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.

Roach and Laura alternate chapters, their first-person-present accounts imparting tension and urgency. Both characters feel a bit cartoonish in their melodrama, but on balance, Slater delivers a twisty exploration of society’s fascination with the macabre.