Even though he had penned four novels in the 1970s and 1980s, John Dunning didn’t “break out” until 1992 with the publication of his first Cliff Janeway novel, BOOKED TO DIE. The main character was a Denver policeman, but more importantly, an avid collector of first edition hardback fiction. It was a fine mystery, but it also taught the reader a lot about book collecting. I know I learned a lot from it and I looked at book collecting through different eyes from that point on. It proved to be one of the most influential crime novels of the last fifty years and was celebrated as such at the Dallas Bouchercon in 2019.

BOOKED TO DIE was a major, if not the major, influence in a collecting craze that was dubbed “hypermodern collecting” that was all the rage among book fans (especially mystery fiction fans) for the next 2-3 years following its publication. A lot of collectors wanted to get in on the ground floor before a newly published book rose substantially in value on the secondary market and that created a buying frenzy for some titles — especially an author’s first novel or the first in a series. Warnings from sage fans that this would most likely be a bubble of excitement and not a good long-term investment strategy proved to be true.

John Dunning went on to write four more Cliff Janeway novels and have a successful career as a crime novelist while at the same time keeping his own bookselling business going along at a good clip.

Then in 2006, John was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After an operation to remove the tumor (only partially successful), he was not able to recover enough of his mental capacities to continue his writing career. Eventually the brain cancer caused an onset of dementia and a long period of decline which culminated in his death on May 23, 2023 at the age of 81.

I had several personal encounters with John Dunning that were memorable to me. He was a man large in stature and strong in opinion. And above all, he loved books and that made him a kindred spirit.

One occasion was when we appeared together on a Bouchercon panel to discuss book collecting. I’ll never forget his sage advice to booksellers, “Sell the book when the book is hot.” Also, I remember him saying, “It’s rarely the book you buy that you regret. It’s the book you didn’t buy (when you had the opportunity to do so) that comes back to haunt you.”

Another occasion was when I attending a book signing at Ken Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City. He showed everyone a mint copy of John Steinbeck’s THE GRAPES OF WRATH that he found in a thrift store for a couple of bucks. He had a slipcase made for it and you could tell how much pride he had in owning that seminal work of literature.

At another signing I brought my copy of BOOKED TO DIE which had been a review copy sent to me by the publisher Scribner. It has the publicity material in the front of the book and upon seeing that, he said, “Oh, this is a review copy. That adds 10% to the value of the book.” I’m not sure if that is true today, but it just showed how much he knew about the book business.

His tombstone should read, “He loved books.”