The Mysterious Bookshop is everywhere

Well, not really everywhere, but I needed a good excuse to report on the fact that in a matter of days, one of the longtime stalwarts of the independent mystery book world is moving to a new location. As of Monday, October 10, you’ll have to trek all the way down to Tribeca — 58 Warren Street, to be exact — to find the shop’s more spacious digs. Although to be fair, it might actually be slightly easier to get to since all you have to do is take the 1/2/3 down to Chambers Street, so it’s really not that far away from its former midtown digs…

But the old location manages to pop up in the current, holiday-themed issue of EQMM. I picked up the December issue, started leafing through and glanced at the byline in “Department of First Stories.” Name seems to ring a bell, so I turn to the corresponding page and read the bio of one Lisa Atkinson, a former actress whose first published fiction appears here (though she won a poetry contest last year.) But then I realize why the name’s familiar — she is Otto Penzler’s wife. And the story is not only set in the confines of Mysterious, but it features Penzler (unnamed, though) as the protagonist. Wearing a Santa cap for much of the story.

It’s actually kind of a cute story if you’re way into inside baseball, so to speak, although the mystery element’s kind of forced (and the ending made me laugh out loud, though probably not for the reasons Atkinson hoped…)