Goodbye, Murder One

The Bookseller reports even more sad news. Murder One, the independent mystery bookstore that has occupied several locations along Charing Cross Road for the last two decades, will shut its doors at the end of January, and seven staff at the shop will lose their jobs. Co-owner Maxim Jakubowski told the trade publication the shop would be going into voluntary

liquidation, and that all bills to publishers would be paid. “Over the last few years our sales have deteriorated,” he said to Benedictine Page. “I was

planning to retire this year, but this is earlier than expected. For

the benefit of staff, publishers and suppliers, I would rather close

the shop now and go out voluntarily with my head held high and no

debts.”

An understandable and perhaps inevitable rationale, but this is still a huge loss to the mystery community. Murder One was a regular haunt of mine during the summer of 2003, when I was a graduate student working on my thesis research at King’s College London. And so it makes me more than a little sad that Charing Cross Road will lose yet another shop – and that the indie bookstore world’s light shines a little less brightly.