Most people are speaking metaphorically when they say that books are dangerous. Jurgen Leitner is deadly serious when he talks about the books he’s spent his life collecting. And judging by the frightening amount of turnover among his staff, Leitner is correct. In Premee Mohamed and Jonathan Sims‘s new novel, From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, we see two men wrestle with Leitner for control of his collection of books that are just waiting to wreck havoc.
Hugh likes his new job at Jurgen Leitner’s highly secure library. At least, he likes his job at first. It’s one of the few places where he can use his talents for sight reading and translating Latin that doesn’t require him to compete for tenure. On the other hand, his colleagues have a terrifying habit of dying in the most distressing ways. (He never really learns what happens to the man who was tasked with studying a particular copy of the Inferno.) His employer’s callous attitude to all of the deaths and disappearances disturbs Hugh even more. Hugh wonders why Leitner insists on keeping his monstrous collection instead of destroying it. Wouldn’t it be safer if, for example, that copy of the Inferno that set off the radiation alarms and vaporized an employee was disposed of? Leitner reacts with anger when Hugh brings it up. This and a few other incidents lead to Hugh being summarily fired. Being fired doesn’t stop Hugh from trying to get back to the library, however.
In another plotline set one year after Hugh’s brief career at Leitner’s library, Sebastian works to undermine Leitner for his own benefit. Sebastian is one of the few people Leitner trusts to acquire his strange books. He knows enough to take precautions, of course, but he has just enough hubris to think that he might be able to use the books for his own benefit. I had a lot less sympathy for Sebastian than I did Hugh—partly because Mohamed and Sims include a lot of gory incidents and partly because Sebastian’s variety of condescension just got right up my nose. Where I hoped that Hugh might find a way to untangle himself from the library, I was counting down the pages waiting for something awful to happen to Sebastian.
From the Library of Jurgen Leitner is a deliciously creepy, richly imagined horror story. The way the two plotlines intersect is absolutely perfect (though savvy readers will probably be able to spot the connection before all of the secrets and betrayals are revealed). And I very much enjoyed that, for once, the humans in this story were as much as danger to themselves as the supernatural horrors are. Instead of wanting to yell at the characters to not split up or stay out of that basement, I wanted to yell at the protagonists in this book that they’re idiots who should drop the books and try to arrange a way to nuke the site from orbit so that no one else is drowned, eaten, or vaporized by a lethal book.
Readers looking for something that will challenge their brains as well as something that will freak them out should definitely pick this book.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review consideration.
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