THE PAPER CAPER

Murder dogs a festival devoted to all things Mark Twain.

Bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright and her dangerously sexy husband, security specialist Derek Stone, are both doing work for wealthy newspaper owner and bibliophile Joseph Cabot. Brooklyn’s running a bookbinding workshop at the magnificent Covington Library, where she plans to refurbish The Prince and the Pauper as part of the festival. She’s intimidated by Joseph’s second wife, Ella, and Ella's supercilious mother, Ingrid, a pair of humorless Swedish beauties. At a party at the library, Joseph introduces some of the festival activities, including a contest offering a $100,000 prize to whomever looks the most like—not Mark Twain—Joseph himself. During a posher party at Cabot’s mansion overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, where Derek’s providing security, he and Brooklyn overhear an argument between Ingrid and Cabot’s butler, Hobson. The winning look-alike, down-at-heels book lover Tom Cantwell, bears such a striking resemblance to Cabot that his wife and mother-in-law are truly uneasy. And then Joseph announces that he and Tom are going to imitate Twain’s book and actually change places. Not everything goes smoothly, though: Hobson refuses to serve as Tom’s butler while Cabot is busy taking Tom’s place as a janitor. The next morning, Hobson opens an envelope that had been delivered for Joseph; moments later, he falls to the floor and dies. Brooklyn realizes that the papers he was holding were coated with a poisonous formula featured in an exhibit at the library. Brooklyn and Derek’s attempts to determine who wanted to kill Hobson, or possibly Cabot, is made more difficult by several attempts on Tom’s life.

A minor mystery buttressed by interesting tidbits on bookbinding and Mark Twain.