John Gilkey's obsession is books -- old, rare and valuable books. He doesn't read them, he just collects them. And since he doesn't have much money or, usually, a job, he doesn't "collect" them so much as he, well, steals them. Though he prefers the more innocuous verb "gets."

Gilkey is a book thief, well known, admitted, convicted, served time again and again. But once free, he always gets more books. It is his obsession. Allison Hoover Bartlett's fascinating book about him, "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much," sheds light on a crime that is underreported and underprosecuted. Antiquarian booksellers often don't report book thefts, for a number of reasons -- they don't want to appear vulnerable, they don't want to appear careless, and they don't always get a serious response. Not all law enforcement personnel recognize books as valuable or consider the thefts to be much more than simple shoplifting.

Bartlett is a meticulous, thorough reporter, nearly obsessed herself. She spent years interviewing Gilkey, tracking him down, talking to him in prison, meeting with him repeatedly after his release. Her book is a wonderful study of a peculiar kind of crime and a strange obsession. That alone would make it worthwhile. But when Gilkey begins showing her where he gets his books -- taking her into a bookstore, parading past the suspicious bookseller, loudly indicating books he'd still like to get -- the situation grows increasingly awkward and ominous. Eventually, Bartlett has to ask herself: When does the journalist move from fly-on-the-wall to tacitly complicit? Her moral dilemma gives this true-crime book a sharp edge.

LAURIE HERTZEL