Barking Up the Right Tree

Two things attracted me to Vincent McCaffrey’s debut mystery, Hound: the publisher, a new (to me, anyway) Massachusetts house called Small Beer Press; and the fact that its author once ran the Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop on Newbury Street in Boston, the scene of much browsing and buying pleasure on my part over the years.

When Victor Hugo went out of business in 2004, McCaffrey took it online--what a good idea. He also began working on Hound, which is about a bookhound named Henry Sullivan, who buys and sells volumes he finds at estate auctions and library sales around Boston, or that he acquires from relatives of the recently deceased. He’s in his late 30s, single, and comfortably set in his ways. But when a woman from his past, Morgan Johnson, calls to ask him to look at her late husband’s books, he is drawn into the dark machinations of a family whose mixed loyalties and secret history prove to have fatal consequences.

Throughout Hound we come across people whose lives revolve around books--readers, writers, salespeople, and agents, in addition to Henry Sullivan, who’s always searching for the great find, but usually just gets by, happy enough to be involved in the pursuit of treasures.

“Vincent McCaffrey’s debut mystery is crammed with stories, with likable, eccentric characters, much like his marvelous Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop--of all the bookstores in the world, the one I still miss most of all,” says Kelly Link, author of the short-story collection Pretty Monsters. “Like all good mysteries, Hound concerns more than murder: it’s rich in detail and knowledgeable asides about bookselling, the world of publishing, and life lived in the pubs, shabby apartments, penthouses, and strange corners of the city of Boston.”

But it may be Paul Tremblay (The Little Sleep) who sums up this novel’s unusual qualities best: “McCaffrey’s bookseller, Henry Sullivan, is as endearing, frustrating, and compelling a character I’ve come across in some time. Hound is more than Henry’s show, however. It’s a slow-burn murder mystery, a sharp character study, a detailed exploration of Boston, and a mediation on the secrets of history--both personal and universal.”