Miranda

Now this should be fun:

Only weeks ago, Basil Killingsley was looking at a rare old book in the Smedley Library. Now he is back to take another look, and the book is gone—gone from the shelves, gone from the computer listings, gone from the memories of everyone who works there.

Basil is as indefatigable as he is eccentric. He will not rest until he finds the book and proves to all concerned that he is not imagining things. But more than Basil’s (considerable) ego is involved here: it is not just any book that is missing, but a 1495 Wynkyn de Worde edition of Ranulf Higden’s Policronicon, a book of historical and literary significance that is crucial to Basil’s research.

As Basil and his equally formidable wife, Hortense, are busy searching the Smedley for clues, members of the staff keep turning up murdered, more books mysteriously appear on the shelves, and a rich donor gets more than he bargained for in library operations.

But even the cleverest criminal is no match when the Killingsleys, with uncanny common sense and humor, apply their scholarly wits to matters odd and lethal.