CRIME FILE
h2@Crime writer Matthew Sullivan talks bright ideas with Chris High
Chris High
© Lucid Concepts
The cover of Matthew Sullivan’s debut novel, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, is every bit as sumptuous as the book’s plot, writing, characters and narrative.
Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, she leads a carefully crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs – the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s shelves.
When Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore, Lydia’s life comes unglued.
Always Joey’s favourite bookseller, Lydia has inherited his meagre worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable.