On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

If you were to find an old copy of the 1944 novel “Absent in the Spring,” it would say the author was Mary Westmacott.

That’s the pen name famed mystery novelist Agatha Christie used when she wanted to write literary fiction, and bookseller Charlotte Lehigh of WordPlay in Wardensville, West Virginia, says the six Westmacotts were, until recently, hard to find.

“They were the unicorn or the Holy Grail for collectors, and so all of the Agatha Christie fans are very, very excited to be able to have these little nuggets finally back in circulation,” Lehigh says.

Newly re-published in July, “Absent in the Spring” is a “compulsive” read

See Full Page