The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry is a decent book with an interesting concept. The literary world is littered with genius detectives, but what about their clerks. The clerks write up the cases and organizes the notes so the detective is free to solve the case. But what happens when the clerk assigned to the greatest detective in the world is promoted to detective and finds out that all the cases were solved incorrectly. And does a mysterious missing chapter in The Manual of Detection (the book of the same name inside the novel) provide any clues on how to solve the mystery?

Mr. Charles Unwin is a lowly clerk for the great detective Travis Sivert and he’s also thinking about leaving the city. He bought the train ticket and was ready to go and then ‘she’ crossed his path. And now he spends every morning going to the train station to watch her (stalk her really). But one morning a detective shows up and tells him that he’s been promoted. Unwin is given the badge and a copy of The Manual of Detection. Thinking it must be a mistake, Unwin goes up to the supervisor’s office and finds him dead. Detective Sivert is missing and Unwin has been promoted to replace him.

This starts off the novel as we follow Unwin trying to learn how to be a detective, find out where Detective Sivert is, figure out why all the previous cases were solved incorrectly and determine why the bad guys are stealing people’s alarm clocks while they sleep. It’s an wonderful idea for the novel, but the execution is a little lacking. The story muddles around a lot and the middle of the book drags on.

Overall it’s decent and worth a look, especially if you’re interested in mystery novels. But I can’t give it that high of a recommendation. I’ll probably want to read Berry’s next novel to see if he has improved his writing.