The left-handed booksellers of London- Garth Nix

In a slightly alternate London in 1983, Susan Arkshaw is looking for her father. Crime boss Frank Thringley might be able to help her, but Susan doesn't get time to ask Frank any questions before he is turned to dust by the outrageously attractive Merlin.

Merlin is a young left-handed bookseller (one of the fighting ones) who, with the right handed booksellers (the intellectual ones), police the mythic and legendary

Old World when it intrudes on the modern world, in addition to running several bookshops.

Merlin has a quest of his own, and quickly finds it overlaps strangely with Susan's: who, or what, was her father?

Susan and Merlin must find out, as the Old World erupts dangerously into the New.