Mystery Man Books in Order

The Mystery Man series is built around one of Bateman's most memorable creations. Its narrator is the owner of No Alibis, a real life mystery bookshop in Belfast, but in the books he never gives his own name. He is a fussy hypochondriac, obsessed with minor ailments, lists and crime fiction trivia, who would rather rearrange his shelves than deal with actual people.

Unfortunately for him, the private detective agency next door goes bust and its clients start drifting into the shop looking for help. In Mystery Man he begins by taking on small jobs that seem safe enough and might even shift a few books, only to find himself and his reluctant sidekick Alison, the illustrator from the jewellery shop across the road, pulled into a murder trail that stretches from modern dance performances to long buried Nazi secrets and a very modern serial killer.

The sequel, The Day of the Jack Russell, opens with a local budget airline owner being humiliated when doctored images of him appear online and on city billboards. At the same time the stuffed Jack Russell belonging to the Chief Constable is stolen. What looks like petty vandalism and a joke about a toy dog spirals into something much more serious, and the small shopkeeper with no name is again in way over his head.

In Dr. Yes the bookseller is facing impending fatherhood when crime writer Augustine Wogan begs him to investigate the disappearance of his wife from an exclusive cosmetic surgery clinic. The case quickly becomes tangled with a disturbingly inventive serial killer and pushes the hero toward the limits of his courage, such as they are.

The Prisoner of Brenda finds him asked by nurse Brenda to look into a mental patient known only as the Man in the White Suit. The man has been arrested near the scene of a notorious gangster's murder and then apparently broken down. Untangling what really happened means venturing into institutions, criminal networks and some very odd local history.

What holds the series together is the voice. The Mystery Man complains constantly about customers, his mother, his health and the state of publishing, yet he is funny, oddly principled and much braver than he wants to admit. The plots are busy and often outrageous, but they are anchored by his running commentary on everything from obscure crime writers to the wrong sort of biscuit.

Readers who enjoy comic crime with a heavy dose of self aware nerdery will find plenty to enjoy here. While the books allude to earlier cases and relationships, each story has its own central mystery and can be read on its own.