Trust me. This is what you want. BIBLIOMYSTERIES: VOLUME TWO follows the same course charted by its predecessor with the same captain. Otto Penzler --- owner, chief cook and bottlewasher of the venerable Mysterious Bookshop, and founder of the absolutely indispensable Mysterious Press --- again has commissioned and collected 15 stories that have only seen print as individual limited-edition works sold as a fundraiser for a most worthy cause. The general subject matter of each story is the same, that being books and/or the places devoted to their sale and access. These authors conclusively demonstrate that such a topic, rather than narrowing the number of stories that might be available, throws the door of possibility wide open.

BIBLIOMYSTERIES: VOLUME TWO does not skimp on anything. You get 15 stories totaling just over 600 pages at a fair price for the heft and quality. There are authors here you know. Even casual mystery fans will find a favorite or two between the covers, and if a couple of names may be unfamiliar, no doubt you will add them to your must-read list on the basis of what you will find here.

"BIBLIOMYSTERIES: VOLUME TWO does not skimp on anything. You get 15 stories totaling just over 600 pages at a fair price for the heft and quality. There are authors here you know. Even casual mystery fans will find a favorite or two between the covers..."

Where should I begin? How about where I started when I cracked this volume open? That would be with “Citadel” by Stephen Hunter, which is set in World War II and involves a British Army captain named Basil St. Florian, who is tasked with locating and photographing a book that doesn’t even officially exist and may or may not hold the key to a code that could affect the fate of the free world. All he has to do is make his way across occupied France with Axis forces dogging his every step. At almost a hundred pages in length, “Citadel” is the longest story here, but it reads much faster than its length would otherwise indicate.

Sherlock Holmes makes a cameo appearance in “The Gospel of Sheba,” a period piece by Lyndsay Faye. While mystery aficionados will not need Holmes’ assistance to solve one of the mysteries in the piece, they’ll never guess the other in this work where the journey is the equal of the destination.

Thomas Perry is present with “The Book of the Lion,” a tale that is more sedate than his usual excellent fare but no less interesting, and features what might be the discovery of a legendary book known only by reference. A mysterious tome of another source surfaces in “The Compendium of Srem” by F. Paul Wilson, in which Tomas de Torquemada of Spanish Inquisition notoriety is confronted with a book that can only be the work of the devil. Speaking of which, R.L Stine, who never seems to run out of new ideas, is present here with “The Sequel,” in which a published author in search of a plot for his second novel is confronted by a stranger who accuses him of stealing his first. It’s a delight, as is “Remaindered,” by Peter Lovesey, who demonstrates that there is no honor had nor love lost among thieves in this story about a deceased bookseller whose inventory includes a trove of first-edition Agatha Christie novels.

My personal favorite --- and I assure you that it was difficult to pick a winner among these equals --- happens to be the very last piece. James W. Hall strays far beyond his familiar South Florida comfort zone to bring us “The Haze,” the story of a man in the deep twilight of his life whose grasp of reality is buffeted by his slowly deteriorating mental state, force-fed medications, and a steady diet of the detective fiction that he has read throughout his life. Perhaps my favorable disposition toward this story is influenced in part by my own potential slow slide into darkness, but what cannot be denied is that Hall’s masterful and haunting blurring of reality and fantasy leaves the reader and the protagonist unsteady and uncertain.

I would love to describe all of these stories. Is that really necessary, though? Know that there are also contributions from Bradford Morrow, Joyce Carol Oates, Elizabeth George, Megan Abbott, Denise Mina and Ian Rankin. This cadre of authors speaks for itself. It doesn’t get any better than this. But you already knew that, when you consider who the editor of this fine volume is.