The Mysterious Bookshop is among the greatest spots in Manhattan; it's around the corner from a cousin of mine. I don't really understand the geography of Tribeca, but if you see the strange "Oculus" station, then you know you are near the Mysterious Bookshop.
One of a few admirable missions at the Bookshop: to travel all over the United States and document our country's most bizarre crimes. The new books are written in France; the French perspective is supposed to add something new. I haven't actually identified the "special sauce" within the French journalism, but I have read most of the books to date. Books on Chandra Levy (DC), the Murdaugh family (South Carolina), the missing Blackfeet women (Montana). I just devoured the story of Alice Crimmins (New York)--and now I feel that Crimmins is possibly not guilty of "her crime." (Also, how strange to note that she is still alive!)
Another fine effort of this bookshop...The owner, Otto Penzler, is reprinting slightly dated classics of the 1930s and 1940s. It's through this project that I have "discovered" Erle Gardner, the creator of the Perry Mason novels.
The actual bookshop is a large room with floor-to-ceiling books; you need a ladder if, for example, you want to check out the Anthony Horowitz catalogue. A quirky bookstore will lead you to see books in a different way; there is no reason *not* to shelve a certain Filipino memoir, "Some People Need Killing," among the true crime books. But "true crime" is often seen as a "low rent" genre, and the Filipino memoir is generally in a "literary heavyweight" category. So you won't see the Filipino book among true crime titles at Barnes and Noble. God bless the Mysterious Bookshop for helping me to see what "Killing" really is--and then for persuading me to buy the book. (For whatever reason, "true crime" grabs me more easily than "Asian politics.")
The other day, I sat in an armchair in the bookshop and finished off "The ABC Murders," one of Agatha Christie's most celebrated novels. The ending is insane--beautifully constructed, unpredictable, only 75-percent implausible. Near me, a customer gently complained that a certain suggested novel was "18th-century Gothic" in setting, when in fact he was hoping for "17th-century Gothic or Gothic-adjacent." Another visitor asked, "Is Otto Penzler ever actually here? He's never here. Right?" This assertion was then challenged. I felt like I was overhearing a conversation about Santa Claus.
Hard to find a "match" for me that is better than the armchair area in the Mysterious Bookshop.
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