Botanist Max Boyle visits "a curious little shop in a side-street off the Tottenham Court Road" in London and is delighted with the bibliophilic treasures he finds. He also stumbles across something less pleasant: in a back room, an unlit gas ring emits its noxious fumes, and two corpses lie sprawled on the floor.

Boyle calls in "The Bishop" - Chief Inspector Reginald F. Bishop of Scotland Yard - who in turns coaxes Boyle's mentor, Professor John Stubbs, a rotund old Scottish botanist and amateur criminologist, to lend his assistance. The salty old professor, quaffing pint after pint of good British beer, his pipe emitting clouds of foul smoke; the protesting Boyle, who would rather be basking in the sun on the Scilly Islands; and the polite, skeptical, world-weary Bishop soon delve beneath the tip of a sinister iceberg to discover skulduggery and dark deeds. Fueled as much by friction among themselves as by enthusiasm, the little crime-solving club threads a maze through London's book and print emporia, grappling with a puzzle that is likely to baffle even the most astute armchair detective.

Bodies in a Bookshop is filled with amusing sallies of wit, quaint and pungent observations, droll characters and rambles among many a volume of forgotten lore. Crisp dialogue keeps the plot moving at top speed. After forty years, Bodies in a Bookshop is as exuberantly readable as ever, a welcome and refreshing relief from so many of today's flat and colorless mystery puzzles.