5 Recommendations From the Mysterious Bookshop Manager Ryan Lee Gilbert
Ever since Otto Penzler opened the Mysterious Bookshop (58 Warren St.) in 1979, it has become one of the most well-regarded speciality bookstores in the country. Fans from not just New York City, but across the country (including celebrities) frequent the meticulously organized and beautifully laid out stacks in search of the mystery, crime, detective, spy, espionage and true crime novels that the shop specializes in — with everything in stock from from new releases to reissued classics to rare first editions you can’t find anywhere else.
Penzler also has his own publishing company called Penzler Publishers that he runs in the basement level of the shop, which features several imprints specializing in mystery, thriller and suspense novels, including the popular imprint American Mystery Classics, which reissues Golden Age era American mystery books.
The Alliance recently checked in with Mysterious Bookshop store manager Ryan Lee Gilbert for five of his recommendations which provide readers with an overview of what the shop is all about. See below for his thoughts:
“The Three Coffins,” by John Dixon Carr
This was put out by American Mystery Classics, one of Otto’s imprints, and was voted by a panel of experts as the best Locked Room Mystery of all time, which is still a very popular genre. A Locked Room Mystery presents you with all of the clues, all of the suspects and everything you need to know as the reader as well as the investigator in the tale. With Locked Room Mysteries, you as the reader have two choices. A very savvy mystery reader will want to solve the mystery as they read along, or you just get to go along for the ride and then get blown away by double crosses or twist endings.
Rian Johnson — this is a favorite bookstore of his — wandered in and had explored our classic section, and had taken a lot of the John Dixon Carr and some novels that helped him as he was working on his “Knives Out” films.
“Christmas Crimes at Mysterious Bookshop,” edited by Otto Penzler
A special thing we do here every year at Christmastime — from Black Friday up until New Year’s Day — is if you make any kind of purchase here over the website, in person, whatever it may be, over the phone, we give out a free Christmas-themed mystery. Otto reaches out to different authors every year and asks who would like to do it. We give it out for free as a gift to our shoppers here. It has to have some sort of Mysterious Bookshop element to it. We recently pulled together about 18 of these Christmas mysteries from giveaways from past years and put them in one collection called “Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop.”
Otto takes the holidays and Christmas very, very seriously, and he gets very much into the spirit of giving. And handing out the free Christmas mystery gives him a lot of joy.
“The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024,” edited by Anthony Horowitz and Otto Penzler
Every year, Otto and a guest editor, this year Anthony Horowitz, go through all of the short mystery stories, contemporary and written in this calendar year, and select the best, and then put them in this collection. If you’re somebody that wants to discover a lot of great mystery writers, a collection like this would really help you because you’d see, “Oh, I bet a lot of these guys have also written full-length novels.” Or you might learn a style of mystery that appeals to you more than others, whether it’s something rural, noir-ish, a spy novel, an unreliable narrator or whatever it may be that pulls you in.
“Flint Kill Creek,” by Joyce Carol Oates
Otto’s publishing company does contemporary stuff as well, and this book from Joyce Carol Oates just came out. She still writes a book for Otto’s publishing company every one or two years. Otto read, edited and collaborated with Joyce on this. This one is on the Mysterious Press imprint. [Ed note: Joyce Carol Oates will be at the Mysterious Bookshop on November 21 at 6 p.m. for a special book event.]
“The Grey Wolf,” by Louise Penny
This Louise Penny [book] just came out, and that’s why I pulled it aside. She’s just huge for us, and we were lucky enough to have her come by and sign every copy for us this year. And that’s the other thing that we try to do. If we can get a book signed, we go to great lengths to get anything signed that we possibly can, whether it’s sending books to people wherever they may be, having them sign them for us and send them back, asking the publisher, doing an event or having them just come by and sign for us.
