Edited by Otto Penzler
Publisher: Vanguard Press
ISBN: 978-1-59315-617-6

Click Here To Purchase Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop

‘Tis the Season to be deadly !’  the jacket of this book gleefully announces, and delivers on its promise too, with  this anthology  of  short stories by some of the most acclaimed names in the whodunit genre.

Nothing celebrates the holiday season quite like tradition – time honoured rituals that we strive to keep alive in the face of change, beloved customs we try to pass onto the generations that will succeed ours. In that regard, The Mysterious Bookshop in New York symbolizes tradition as well, a Lone Ranger among independent book stores, standing its ground against  the great posse of its rivals - chain stores, online retailers, e-books - that increase in number each year. It seems fitting, therefore, that the Bookshop be the source  of a unique literary ritual that celebrates its own essence  as much as it does the spirit of Christmas.

For the last seventeen years, Otto Penzler,  owner of the Mysterious Bookshop, has commissioned a short story from one of the leading writers in the mystery genre, to be printed out in pamphlet form and gifted to one thousand lucky customers at Christmas. The rules-  the story must be set in the Christmas season and at least partly  on the Bookshop’s premises.   Ranging from the humorous to the dark, the romantic to the philosophical , and featuring an interesting array of dead bodies – several writers, and even a few Santas –  these pamphlets have gone on to become  prized collectors’ items.  Now, for the first time,  ‘Christmas..’ ,  compiles all these stories together in a volume guaranteed to warm the heart of every  mystery buff, with  contributions from such  bestselling authors as  Mary Higgins Clark, Donald Westlake, Ann Perry  and Rupert Holmes.

Thanks to Penzler’s rules, the Mysterious Bookshop becomes the scene of many a crime, with dead bodies – several writers and even the odd Santa – gracing its premises. The hilarious ‘Give till it hurts’ kick starts this anthology with the story of a thief who joins a group of writers at the Bookshop for an evening of poker and hiding from the cops.   Obsessive  bibliophiles and frustrated writers abound, as do cat burglars and investigators.  Penzler himself appears in several stories,  though never guilty of anything more devious than some  match making ( ‘The Grift of the Magi’) , or briefly contemplating a strange customer’s demise ( ‘My Object Sublime’), before skillfully deflecting disaster with a unique and irresistible offer.

 Not all these stories are conventional mysteries – ‘The Lesson of the Season’ stands out for its moving examination of a woman’s relationship with the world round her, while ‘My Object All Sublime’ builds up the suspense around little more than a conversation , before ending with a neat  flourish. My pick from the lot –  the darkly comic ‘Murder for Dummies’, about a  frustrated  writer’s attempt to steal a manuscript from an unsuspecting elderly woman, with secrets of her own. 


Click Here To Purchase Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop