James Holding (1907–1997)

This is a tremendously well-written and enjoyable mystery book for young adults. There is warmth, humor, and a fairly good mystery. The overall tone is closer to the sometimes serious Ken Holt mysteries than the juvenile but fun Hardy Boys. Holding does an excellent job of straddling the line between both, having just the right amount of each ingredient.

Both Dutch and his pal Cam have girlfriends — Kathy and Janet — and while there is hardly anything beyond what you’d normally find in a book for young adults from this era — the 1960s — it has a more authentic feel than just throwaway characters. While Cam has a hot rod of sorts and is the school jock, Dutch has a job at Fulmer Memorial Museum in Riverlawn so that he can help support his mom and sister, Hilda. She is only a freshman but has a huge crush on upperclassmen Cam. Holding, used to writing adult stories, manages to inject youthful zest into the narrative while also giving it some more adult danger and excitement. He also imparts just enough information about Egyptology to be informative without boring his audience.

The mystery begins nicely when Dutch’s job at the museum brings him into harm’s way during a daring late-night robbery. But only the gilded fingertips of a Tut exhibit are stolen, and they were only replicas, not real gold. Nothing makes sense, especially that fake TV repairman attempting to gain access to Dutch’s house the next day. Eager to investigate, Dutch and Cam discover it has something to do with Arabs, and a trip Dutch’s dad once took. While picnicking with Kathy and Janet, they are run off the road. Later, when Dutch and Cam are briefly captured, they discover to their horror that Kathy and Janet are in danger because of a suitcase. The inferred intentions of those seeking it to have some adult “fun” with the two pretty high school girls, is one of the things which make this a tad more realistic than some books for young adults. It doesn’t end up happening, of course, as this is perfectly suitable for teenagers, but the prospect that it might adds a dash of realism. In this way it is similar to the Ken Holt series, though the gritty tone is absent here.

Before it’s all over, Sgt Barry and an FBI man will become involved, and there is more than one exciting rescue involving the boys. There is also a surprising wrap-up concerning Cam and Hilda, Dutch’s sister, which is another nice touch by Holding. A very good and enjoyable read in the young adult genre.… (más)

Overall, this series has a clever premise: an experienced police detective has now left his job with "serious" crime investigation to serve as the person who hunts down people with overdue library books. However, his seemingly innocent job repeatedly leads him into serious crime situations which he solves by using his past police skills plus his understanding of how the library system works. Many of these stories are based on ingenious links between books and crime.
Though most of the stories are enjoyable, there are a few weaknesses. There are two stories which are obviously variants on the same story (even the characters' names are the same) -- judging from the previous publication credits, apparently the author sold different drafts to two different magazines.
Also, the last few stories drop the "library fuzz" detective and make the main detective a regular cop who had appeared as a secondary series character earlier. These stories switch from the urban setting of the earlier stories to a small town setting with no explanation -- there is no suggestion this cop might have transferred to a different town, for instance.
To sum up, given the low price of the volume, I think it is worth buying as light entertainment.… (más)

I'd love to hire him Though he'd probably show up a few times at my door!

With the caveat that it's from the 70s and theres no computers or mobile/cell phones going around it's still pretty accurate and interesting and it reads like the author knew libraries fairly well. I can't find much about him (in the few minutes of googling all I could find was the French Wikipedia listing) but he seems to have been a prolific short-story writer. These were pretty slight and quick stories without too much depth but as a story of a retired police detective trying to live the quiet life as a tracker-down of missing and overdue library books it was entertaining and right up my alley.

Because he's an ex-cop he gets himself interested in the lives of the people he's interacting with and once he gets a sniff that there's something off it's hard to stop him, today he would probably get reprimanded for using too much of his time to solve these mysteries and would probably be suffering under a quota load.

In several of the stories he interacts with a Lieutenant Randall who has his own series.

Library Fuzz (1972) - opens with a dead body where Hal Johnson is just trying to find an overdue book.
More Than a Mere Storybook (1973) - Hal almost gets knocked out when in a house and finds more than just missing library books.
The Bookmark (1973) - when he retrieves books his car is broken into, what's in one of the books leads to solving a mystery.
The Elusive Mrs. Stout (1974) - an elusive borrower promises to be there when Hal arrives but things get complicated.
Still a Cop (1975) - a library book is linked to a murder.
The Mutilated Scholar (1976) - Hal recognises a library book on the bus as being a book stolen when his car was stolen and solving this mystery is complicated.
The Savanarola Syndrome - many copies of a book are going missing and this investigation is going to lead to potentially explosive finale.

There are apparently 3 more stories in this series (they don't list the Savanarola Syndrome on wikipedia and it may have had another name in other markets) but there are apparently 3 more stories to hunt down:
The Young Runners (1978)
The Reward (1980)
The Book Clue (1984)
I'd like to read more by this author, I enjoyed the reads and while slight they are decent enough.… (más)