I finished three books so far this month, and haven’t written any book reviews…let’s kick things off with a spoiler-free review for Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore.

Title: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Author: Matthew Sullivan

Publisher: Scribner

Date of Publication: June 2017

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Page Count: Hardcover 328

“When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind. Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves.

But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?

As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left.”

“When she stepped into the Western History alcove, she could feel her eyes trying to shut out what she was seeing: Joey, hovering in the air, swinging like a pendulum. A long ratcheted strap was threaded over a ceiling beam and looped around his neck. Lydia’s body sprung with terror, but instead of running away she was suddenly running toward him, toward Joey, and hugging his lanky legs and trying to hoist him up. She heard someone’s scream curdle through the store and realized it was her own.”

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is about Lydia who works at Bright Ideas Bookstore in San Francisco. One of their usual customers, Joey, hangs himself in the bookstore. He leaves all of his belongings to Lydia, among which include a box of books that have little holes cut out of their pages. Lydia is left wondering if he was trying to leave her a message. With the help of Lydia’s boyfriend David, colleagues, and Raj (a childhood friend from when she lived in Pikes Peak, Colorado), she tries to figure out what the books mean, and why Joey had a picture of her from when she was a kid in his pocket when he died. As they unravel this mystery, Lydia is also facing demons from her past. When ten-year-old Lydia was at her friend’s house for a sleepover a man broke in and murdered her friend Carol and Carol’s parents with a hammer. Lydia managed to survived by hiding in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. The Hammerman was never caught.

“She looked up from the sink and stared at David for a sign that her father had told, that David now knew who she really was: Little Lydia. The bloody-faced girl beneath the sink, the survivor from the evening news. Because no one from her present life knew. No one could know.”

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore talks about family, friendship, identity, suicide, murder, and truth. Some of the characters felt unique, with authentic motivations and emotions. Almost every character had a little mystery to them, and it was really fun finding out more about them. Lydia’s co-worker, Plath, is hilarious! I wish she had a bigger part in the story. Lyle also offered some comedic relief:

“So I put his ashes in a duffel bag and snipped a tiny hole in the bottom and walked the length of the zoo. But I didn’t make the hole big enough so there were these tiny pieces left over in the bag. I shook them into the grass. But then all the geese thought he was bread crumbs and started charging me. Horrifying, Lydia, the way they gobbled him up. A frenzy. Joey would’ve abhorred all the attention.”

Using flashbacks to Lydia’s childhood, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is never confusing, and easy to follow – BUT sometimes not easy to read. With suicide and murder, you can guess that there are some gut-wrenching, vivid scenes that will stay with you.

The murder of Carol and her parents happens early in the book. That chapter is incredibly intense. The image of Lydia squished up in the counter under the kitchen sink, hoping the Hammerman doesn’t find her, is heart-pounding and heart-breaking all at the same time. Why did Joey kill himself? Why did he leave his cut-up books to Lydia? Who was the Hammerman?

I feel that some character actions were unbelievable, in the bad way. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say I don’t understand why the person who knew who the Hammerman was kept it a secret. It was incredibly annoying when Lydia would get hit on by almost every man she spoke with. Also, why was David (boyfriend) even in this story? The ending was a little weak, but not the worst I’ve read.

Dislikes aside, I still highly recommend Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore to readers 16 years-old+ who love a thrilling mystery novel.

Plot 4/5
Characters 3/5
Writing 5/5
Overall: 4/5

“Matthew Sullivan grew up in a family of eight children in suburban Denver, Colorado. He received his B.A. from the University of San Francisco, his M.F.A. from the University of Idaho, and his short stories have been awarded the Florida Review Editor’s Prize and the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize. In addition to working for years at Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver and at Brookline Booksmith in Boston, he has taught writing at colleges in Boston, Idaho, and Poland. Since 2003, he has been teaching writing, literature, and film at Big Bend Community College in rural Washington State. He is married to a librarian, Libby, and has two children and a scruffy dog named Ernie.”

https://www.matthewjsullivan.com/