I had forgotten how much I enjoy the Dido Hoare mysteries until I re-read two of my favorites (Death’s Autograph and Die Once ). Dido Hoare is a bookwoman in London selling used, antiquarian, and rare volumes out of her shop. Macdonald introduces her heroine in a situation that will be familiar to many book dealers:
The back of the estate care was crammed to the roof with slightly damp cardboard boxes. They held the collection of books I’d brought that evening, with great difficulty, from the optimistically greedy heirs of a retired Oxfor University professor of English Literature, recently buried… (2)
Dido was among the first bookwomen/detectives, a character that would dominate bookstore fiction in the 21st century. When Dido opens her store selling used and rate books, she done oincldue a coffee shop (and none of the books detailing her adventures feature cute cafe-themed titles like Death by Espresso or Mint Julep Murder . There are no ghosts (The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library ). She does not even specialize in mystery novels.
Dido’s adventures are firmly embedded in the life of a bookstore. We first meet her driving through the night in a car full of “slightly damp cardboard boxes.” The mystery in her first adventure develops from the premise that it is often difficult to find anything in what my father used to call the “organised clutter” of a used bookstore. The mystery driving Die Once begins when she sets out to retrieve a book purchased with a bounced cheque.
Dido is, first and foremost, a bookwoman. Her father gave her the store as a wedding gift and she kept it long after disposing of the husband that came with it. Like man independent bookstore owners, she lives upstairs from the store (with a cat). She discovers mysteries and clues while attending book fairs or purchasing estates. She spends her time pricing and shelving books or responding to customers. She often thinks of her customers in less than flattering terms. No one could learn how to operate a bookstore by reading the Dido Hoare Mysteries, but anyone would get a good idea what the job is like.
Her bookstore is located on a busy street in a London suburb, a location that brings a variety of people into the shop, each with their own story. The bookstore itself provides a powerful locale for interactions. A bookstore provides a space for interaction between people, books, and money. It is a powerful combination. Dido, as bookseller, manages those interactions as well as she can, but a bookstore holds a complex of interactions that no one can manage completely. Cypbernetic theorists have a wonderful term, “requisite variety” that describes the impossibility of keeping the world under control. The result is that a complicated location like a bookstore will hold surprises.
Dido is an expert in rare books. She recognizes the value of a volume and knows when a book is rubbish that should be dropped in the bin. her expertise is in identifying the monetary value of cultural objects. The mysteries and murders she encounters while working as a bookwoman are often caused by these questions of value.
In her first adventure, Death’s Autograph, she fails to recognize the object the murderers desire because she sees it only as “the wreck of the collection.”
The passing centuries had browned the pages and rotted the stitching so that the spine of the volume was dissolving, while dust and mould had given it the smell of the tomb. (155)
She sees the volume as a bookseller. It is neither rare nor in good condition, hence it lacks value. Only when it is shown to her from a different perspective – not as a bookseller – does she understand the truth behind the mystery. Dido is not a detective; she does not solve mysteries. She does, however, recognize when the mystery is resolved. As a practical, businesswoman she can then act to resolve the situation.
Marianne Macdonald, author of the Dido Hoare Mysteries, was not herself a bookseller but her husband was and she was a partner in the business. She had written a series of children’s books, but in 1996, at 62 years of age, she wanted to start an amateur detective series. Antiquarian books, she realized, were a useful area for investigation. “Some can be very obscure and very valuable, and of course with strangers wandering into a shop almost anything could happen” . She produced one Dido Hoare Mystery almost every year until the final volume, Faking It involving a medieval manuscript and a book scout in 2006.
Macdonald, M. (1997). Death’s Autograph. St. Martin’s Press.
Macdonald, M. (1998). Ghost Walk. St. Martin’s Press.
Macdonald, M. (1999). Smoke Screen (New edition). Minotaur Books.
Macdonald, M. (2000). Road Kill (New edition). Minotaur Books.
Macdonald, M. (2002). Blood Lies (1st edition). Minotaur Books.
Macdonald, M. (2003). Die Once (1st edition). Minotaur Books.
Macdonald, M. (2005). Three Monkeys (1st edition). Severn House Publishers.
Macdonald, M. (2006). Faking It. Severn House Publishers.
