Like its predecessors, Booked to Die and The Bookman’s Wake, The Bookman’s Promise follows the exploits of bookstore owner and one-time police detective Cliff Janeway. Janeway can’t seem to keep investigative work out of his life, despite his efforts to focus on being a fulltime bookman.

In this installment, Janeway has become an admirer of Richard Burton, a multi-talented nineteenth-century English explorer. Using a pile of cash received in his last outing, Janeway has purchased at auction a rare Burton travelogue. A chance bit of publicity surrounding that purchase puts him in contact with a mysterious elderly widow with what she claims are family ties to Burton—ties that include previously undiscovered writings by and photographs of Burton.

One thing leads to another, and Janeway soon departs his Denver home for the eastern seaboard on the trail of what could be bookman’s bonanza of undiscovered material.

In the middle of Janeway’s adventures, Dunning includes a 50-page historical remembrance of Burton’s 1860 travels to the United States by a travel partner mentioned in none of Burton’s extant works. The unknown partner happens to be the grandfather of the mysterious widow; the trick is to discover the extent to which the account might be true.

It’s been a few years since I read the earlier Janeway books, but I remember liking them quite a bit. In this installment, Dunning offers a mixed bag. He’s great when he’s describing the bookseller’s world. His descriptions of Charleston, past and present, are a delight. The characters in Janeway’s world are well drawn, as attractive and frustrating as folks you meet everyday.

I was far less enchanted when Janeway becomes the tough guy. His machismo seems forced, perhaps because the story’s violence seems oddly stiched to the rest of the account.

Nonetheless, this is a rewarding book. Its intersection of fiction and history is rich in character, evocations of times past, and the press of the past on the present. Dunning knows how to romanticize his hard-boiled stories on a par with the greats like Chandler. Janeway remains one of my favorite private detectives, even if he’d flinch at anyone applying that label to him.