Golden Age Bibliomysteries

Of crime fiction’s many sub-genres, none is so reflexive and so intriguing as the “bibliomystery”: stories that involve crimes set, somehow, in the world of books.

In Vincent Starrett’s “A Volume of Poe,” a bookseller is murdered; in Ellery Queen’s “The Adventure of the Three R’s,” the detective tracks the disappearance of a local Missouri author; and a killer stalks the stacks of the New York Public Library in Robert L....