The true story of a literary crime that fooled the world

‘A page-turner about page-turners’ Janice Hallett
‘The perfect piece of armchair detection’ Ruth Ware
‘Hugely entertaining and unexpectedly gripping’ London Review of Books

A true detective story from the age of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers: the literary crime that fooled the world - and the daring young booksellers who uncovered it

London, 1932. Thomas James Wise is the toast of the literary establishment. A prominent collector and businessman, with friends in high places, he is one of the most powerful men in the field of rare books.

One night, two young booksellers stumble upon a strange discrepancy leading them to suspect Wise and his books are not all they seem. Inspired by the vogue for Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, the pair harness the latest developments in forensic analysis to crack the case. By the time they are done, their investigation will have rocked the book world to its core.

‘A thrilling unravelling of bookish fraud that reads like a detective story from the golden age’ Roland Philipps, author of A Spy Named Orphan

‘Hone is a lively and fluent writer, ratcheting up the temperature with snappy sentences and chapters ending on cliffhangers’ Sunday Telegraph