Russell Books has been hit by a thief who broke into the downtown Victoria store and made off with antiquarian and valuable books worth more than $55,000.
Victoria Police made an arrest later Thursday and recovered most of the stolen books.
Manager Andrea Minter said the haul included a signed Harry Potter novel, a Walt Whitman first edition valued at more than $10,000 and a tome published in 1600 that was just recently acquired.
The thief, she said, broke open locked glass cases to grab the most valuable books. Some of the antique cases had just been donated to the store from the estate of a customer.
Entry was made Wednesday night or early Thursday morning at the rear of the store, at 747 Fort St., between Douglas and Blanshard streets.
“We’re all very emotional here, but we’re happy that no one one was hurt,” Minter said.
“If they had taken only books from the New York Times bestseller’s list, we can replace those,” said Minter. “But they took all of our favourites, our special books, so that makes it really hard.”
Russell Books is Canada’s largest independent bookstore, and one of the largest dealers in vintage and antiquarian books.
Victoria Police Chief Del Manak said officers were able to identify and locate a suspect Thursday who was in possession of some of the books. “Officers did some more digging and located most, if not all of the stolen books,” Manak said on Twitter.
“Suspect booked, final chapter written by VicPD.”
The overnight break-in was the second disturbing incident for the store.
Two weeks ago, someone smashed a front window by throwing a garbage can. Nothing was stolen, but the window smashing has become commonplace downtown.
On Wednesday, Victoria police were investigating smashed windows in at least six downtown businesses across seven blocks.
Police are also investigating two incidents of windows being smashed at the Greater Victoria Public Library’s main branch on Broughton Street in late January and this month.
dkloster@timescolonist.com
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