A mystery with bright ideas

The cover of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan (2017) raises questions even before one opens the book. In the color coding used by publishers of paperbacks, a black cover suggests dark subject matter — horror stories, for example, or novels about mass murderers. Yet over the black background on Sullivan's novel are brightly-colored books that carry the title, which itself hints at something much lighter. So which will it be?

Sullivan answers the question on page four when Lydia Smith, who works at the Bright Ideas Bookshop in Denver, discovers the body of Joey Molina, a young man who had spent most of each day hanging out in the shop. Now he is literally hanging in the bookstore, dead by suicide. Not much less shocking than discovering the body is a photograph of herself, taken at a childhood birthday party, that she finds in his pocket. How did Joey get that photo, which she doesn't remember ever seeing before, and why would he have it in his pocket?

This outstanding mystery novel reminds me a bit of Carolyn Pankhurst's The Nobodies Album, in which a woman trying to understand how her son, a rock star, could possibly be a murderer discovers the real murderer. Sullivan, too, comes at the murder mystery sideways. Lydia just wants to understand Joey and that photo in his pocket. Along the way she identifies a killer.

No, Joey really kills himself. The murders in question happened years before when Lydia was a little girl at a sleepover at a friend's house. During the night someone entered the house and killed every member of the family with a hammer, while Lydia hid under the kitchen sink. Her own father has always been the prime suspect in the case, but there has never been sufficient evidence to arrest him. Now he lives alone in rural Colorado, and Lydia has avoided him for years. But perhaps he can explain that mysterious photograph, since he is probably the one who took it.

And so Lydia Smith solves a big mystery while trying to solve a smaller one. The two mysteries, it turns out, are connected in surprising ways, and both keep us guessing most of the way. (You will probably discover the murderer a few pages before she does.)

Sullivan's novel is as original as any mystery you are likely to find. I recommend it highly.