Do you think enough has been written about this presidential election? What with the New York Times attacking President Bush’s policies, starting about three weeks before he took office, and poll results relentlessly describing approval ratings of everything both candidates said, thought or did, including their brands of breakfast cereal, it’s reasonable to suggest that never has so much been written by so many for so few (considering the probable election-day turnout).

But, just when you thought the saturation point had been reached, and you headed off to the mystery section of your local bookstore to escape all that shrill “pontification,” publishers figured you needed just a bit more of it all and have released a spate of books to keep you in the mood. Some of these are mysteries; some aren’t even bad.

The best book of the group is Larry Beinhart’s “The Librarian” (Nation Books, 432 pages, $15.95). Mr. Beinhart, a talented writer who won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for his first mystery, “No One Rides for Free,” also wrote “American Hero,” which served as the basis for the popular film “Wag the Dog.” There is plenty of good news and bad news to go around with this new one.

The pleasure of the book is the author’s skill in getting the reader involved in the action. The setup is splendid. A librarian working for Alan Carston Stowe, a billionaire, sorting papers and such, asks David Goldberg, her former employer at a university, to fill in for her for a few days. He agrees, but she never returns, and so he stays on, enjoying the work, the deference of the rich man’s staff, and the extra income. He is not sure of what the point of it all is but soon suspects there is something sinister about the project.

It quickly becomes apparent that Stowe is part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to re-elect the conservative president, who resembles George W. Bush more than slightly. Naturally, these political figures are drawn as borderline fascistic, with a plan to conquer the world, while the Democratic presidential nominee is only a small step away from sainthood. But there is a good, complex plot here, all of which makes sense within the absurd premise. There is some humor as well, though for the publisher to attempt to compare Mr. Beinhart with Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard is even more absurd than the plot.

The downside is that so much of the book is interlaced with polemical political posturing that it becomes impossible to take it seriously. This may be the point, or it might not be. Even Michael Moore didn’t actually believe he had produced a reasonable philosophical discourse with “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Equally even-handed and balanced, but without a scintilla of wit or intelligence, is “G.O.P. DOA” (Contemporary Press, 181 pages, $9) by Jay Brida. The tone is set with what are titled, curiously, “Liner Notes.” The author thanks many groups, including the Republican Party, “without whose hysterical intolerance and catastrophic mismanagement of local, national, and global affairs, none of this would have been possible.” He goes on to thank the distributor, in what may be a fair assessment, “for taking a bunch of loudmouth drunks into their stable.”

This little bucket of bilge, in which dialogue and exposition feature endless crudities (the F-word appears as a noun, adjective, adverb, or gerund on nearly every page), appears to be about a murder that occurs during the Republican convention in New York. I applaud my own strength of responsibility (and stomach) to have made it all the way through, but I’m still not entirely sure what its point is – except that the Ramones were cool.

If you are stuck in an airport and desperate for something to read, and this is the only book in sight, dig through a trash can for a week-old newspaper instead. Even if it were used to wrap fish, it wouldn’t stink as much as this pathetic waste of some perfectly good trees.

Of no particular merit (but Shakespearian compared with the previously mentioned book) is “A Vote for Murder” (New American Library, 277 pages, $19.95) by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain.

Well, it’s not by Jessica Fletcher, who is the featured sleuth in the television series “Murder, She Wrote,” but if you actually want to read another entry in this cozy series, that’s probably how it will be shelved. This harmless frivolity involves Jessica visiting Washington, D.C., to support a senator’s new literacy program, only to have a planned weeklong round of parties and good works spoiled by the death of the senator’s chief-of-staff. The novel has the same intellectual depth as the television show, so it’s your call.

Finally, you might like “Mr. President, Private Eye” (ibooks, 275 pages, $6.99), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Francis M. Nevins Jr. The conceit of this nice little volume, which was originally published in 1988 but has just been reissued, is that each of the 11 stories features a former president of the United States.

Perhaps the highlight of the anthology is “From the Journal of …” by Dorothy B. Hughes, which stars Martin Van Buren in a tale of kidnapping and the Underground Railroad. Although Ms. Hughes was one of the first women to write hardboiled fiction (“In a Lonely Place,” “The Fallen Sparrow,” and “Ride the Pink Horse” all were successful films as well as novels), this story has a delightfully soft-spoken manner about it, with charming characters. Also included in the volume are stories by Edward D. Hoch, Stuart Kaminsky, and a surprisingly colorful tale about Calvin Coolidge by Ed Gorman.

None of these books marks the literary event of the year. But, if you decide to pick up one, choose the best of whatever is available. Kind of like the election.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at openzler@nysun.com.