Paperback Poison

A dead dealer. A vanished inventory trail. A book fair where every cover hides a secret.

When the Briar Glen Traveling Book Fair opens for the season, bookseller Tessa Quinn expects long tables, rare editions, vendor politics, and the usual quiet chaos of collectors searching for the perfect find.

She does not expect Victor Hale, a smooth traveling dealer with a reputation for "finding" unusual stock, to be discovered dead beside his booth before the doors open.

At first, the death looks natural. But Tessa has already noticed too many small irregularities: authenticated books that may not be the books she examined, inventory tags that do not match the records, a thin leather folio carried by a man who seems to know every private deal before it happens, and a young vendor who looks suspiciously easy to blame.

As Tessa follows the paper trail through forged dust jackets, missing provenance, private-sale logs, and a book fair full of polite people with careful secrets, she realizes Victor was not just selling books.

He was selling access.

And someone at the fair is willing to poison more than a reputation to keep the truth from being read.

Paperback Poison is Book Three in The Quiet Crimes Collection, a smart, clue-driven cozy mystery series set in bookstores, libraries, and literary spaces. Perfect for readers who love amateur sleuths, rare books, fair-play clues, and mysteries solved through patience, records, and sharp observation.