The Bay Psalm Book Murder

Will Harriss's first mystery turns on one of the rarest books in America, the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the English colonies of North America. When a friend of Cliff Dunbar's is murdered, the police settle on a pair of thugs as the likely killers, but Dunbar is convinced the crime has more to do with a copy of the coveted book than with random violence. Acting as an amateur detective, he follows the trail into the world of rare books, collectors and the people willing to go to great lengths to own a piece of history. A bibliomystery later noted in Otto Penzler's survey of the form, it won the 1984 Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author.