Glenn Cooper - Library of the Dead

review by Brian Lowen on show 28th July
I enjoyed this book. Completely far-fetched and jumping about between the centuries, but as with some books this can be very annoying and confusing, not with this story.
We move from the year 777 at a monastery on the Isle of Wight, to the year 1947 in the same place, and then to present day New York City. Each place has its own story to tell which all finally come together towards the end.

Our hero is maverick FBI special agent Will Piper, once the most accomplished serial killing expert in the bureau’s history, but now on a dissolute spiral to retirement.

He is reluctantly given one final case – to catch a murderer who is loose on the streets of New York, nicknamed the Doomsday Killer, he has already claimed six victims. The police are mystified because the victims have nothing in common, defying all profiling, all that connects them is that each received a mysterious postcard in the mail before they died, announcing the date of their death.

Will’s search for the killer takes him in a direction he could never have predicted, uncovering a shocking secret that has been closely guarded for centuries. A secret that once lay buried in an underground library beneath an eighth century monastery, but which has now been unearthed.
The reader will find this secret completely preposterous but it does make for a good story.
There is a sequel to this book which I shall seek out, as Will is a believable character who you can empathise with. A recommended read.