Kate Carlisle | A Puzzle Wrapped in a Mystery Bound in a Book

New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle is a native Californian who worked in television production for many years before turning to writing. It was a lifelong fascination with the art and craft of bookbinding that led her to write the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably uncover old secrets, treachery and murder. Visit Kate online at www.KateCarlisle.com.

Have you ever browsed through the old books at antique stores or flea markets or estate sales and wondered about the stories those books could tell? Not just the story in the book, but the story of the book. Who owned it? How did they acquire it? What did it mean to them? What sorts of people bought the book and then safeguarded it for 100 years or more?

That very intriguing idea is what prompted me to create the Bibliophile Mysteries. At the center of each mystery is a rare book being restored by preeminent bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright. As I craft the plot, I echo the themes of the rare book, but with a modern twist. I think of it as a puzzle within the mystery, a bonus gift to my readers.

In RIPPED FROM THE PAGES, the rare book in question is a first edition of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Much of the action takes place in a California wine cave. Because Verne was a French writer, I came up with a treasure that was ferreted out of Nazi-occupied France, then stashed in the cave. Life—or rather, death—got in the way.

A scene from RIPPED FROM THE PAGES:

I was curious to see what other bounty we would find in there, so I peeked around Derek to take another look. And I let out a piercing shriek.

“What is it?” Austin demanded, crowding me as I tried to push away from the wall.

Robin chuckled. “Knowing Brooklyn, she probably found a dead body.”

Her words barely registered as I pointed a shaky finger at what I saw on the floor close to the wall.

Derek aimed the beam where I’d indicated and muttered an expletive. He stepped back from the hole in the wall, turned off the flashlight, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

Robin’s smile faltered. “Derek?”

“You were right, Robin,” Derek said, giving me a soft squeeze of sympathy. “This cave has just turned into a crime scene.”

Who is the dead man in the cave? Why is he there? And who now owns the priceless treasures discovered with his body? You'll discover these answers in RIPPED FROM THE PAGES, which is now available in mass market paperback and ebook. (It came out in hardcover last year.)

What old book would you love to find at a flea market? Why that one, particularly?

About RIPPED FROM THE PAGES

Now in paperback—book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright unearths murder and treasure in California Wine Country, in the New York Times bestselling mystery series…

While Brooklyn temporarily stays with her parents in Northern California, she attends an excavation of the caves hidden deep under their commune. A room is unearthed, revealing a treasure trove of artwork, rare books, cases of wine, a chest of jewelry…and a perfectly mummified body. They also find a secret map leading to even more valuables.

Word of the explosive find draws in reporters, art appraisers, questions, and complications. Soon Brooklyn decides to do a little excavating of her own and solve the mystery of the treasure before anyone else is written off….

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