I can’t practice law in Arizona, having read for the Virginia Bar, so my husband Rob one day asked me what I wanted to do when we settled here and I thought for a second and said I’d like to go back to books (I was a librarian, interned at the Library of Congress). But as a bookseller. And, said I, it’s hard to be a generalist today so I’ll be a specialist. What I knew, what I loved most, was mystery. So Rob, who is a Rosenwald (Sears Roebuck) and loves business, set up the bookstore so I could run it. And ten years ago, when I pointed out the opportunities for a small press, he ditched the software business to co-found Poisoned Pen Press. We didn’t intend it to be a publisher of original fiction (reprints looked right) in hardcover, but as big publishing changed, it became irresistible to take on new authors, brand new authors, and see what we could do.

I own the bookstore The Poisoned Pen, and he works for me as the IT guy. He owns Poisoned Pen Press and I work for him as the editor (substantive and copy and acquisitions—I must be nuts). The two corporations are completely separate and independent, each a customer/consumer of the other, but each allows us a lot of market research and customer contact. One of these days we need to think about retirement….

Big has gotten bigger with corporate mergers with the result that more opportunities for smaller, specialized presses (or general presses) have opened up, and more technology exists to support smaller operations. I think small publishing is the hope of the future reader who wants quality books, or even eccentric books that mainstream publishing can’t afford. The difficulty lies in quality control in both content and production—there are a lot of terrible books, or badly produced books, coming into the system. It’s a screening nightmare for a bookseller, librarian, or reader as well as a mitzvah.

Genres come and go. Mystery is way down, when I began in 1988, it was riding high. It will come back around. The cycle is normally 10 years.

Within genres, trends come and go. Right now paranormal is hot, sex is hot when once it was seldom introduced. Thrillers, the big stakes, high action books, are dominant compared to a traditional detection. Niche cozies are published with specialty targets like knitters. With the historical novel having made a huge comeback, the authors who had migrated into mystery in the early 90s have returned to form.

I’ve given up on the term “mystery” and now call it all crime fiction, a much more expansive term. It’s also a mistake to think a mystery has to have a murder: murder raises the stakes but in fact there are other crimes to cover.

See No. 3. I could add the scifi/mystery cross over (JD Robb, for instance, or Jim Butcher). Justice comes in alternative forms as our justice system so seldom produces the kind of certain punishment you get in a Christie. There are more mysteries with vigilante style or some solution outside the criminal justice system, and the PI has always owed allegiance to a client above all.

I sometimes urge my own authors to remember that with some characters, “he’s a bad man and needs killing.” Meaning some villains deserve to die, not do five years or walk when they draw the right jury. I think the author has some moral responsibility when creating villains to dispose of them so the rest of society doesn’t bear the burden. Or the risks.

Not in our store, but perhaps the rage for forensic TV shows and in various aspects of the justice system has raised an interest in cases explored in books.

I’m too wise to answer this. I am well grounded in the classics, American and British, and can shuffle Chandler and Sayers with equal dexterity or go back to Chesterton or Collins or Poe. My taste is so catholic any “best” list would go on for pages.

Make books more integrated with other storytelling formats: websites, films, games, whatever. I’m not sure that readers as we define them, i.e., bookpeople, don’t need a new definition. With schools focused on testing rather than learning, and with intense competition for time and attention (cell phones and text messaging seem to absorb enormous amounts), storytelling will survive but I’m not clear the book as we know it will grow an audience of new readers.

I read mystery because I love learning stuff, all sorts of stuff. They keep me sharp and informed on what’s going on in society. The puzzle aspect of the traditional detection is challenging, the chase of the thriller is exciting, the moral core of the book is satisfying—it all lifts you out of daily life and helps you shape your world. Reading is an individual experience, each reader interacting with the book in his or her own way, but there’s a common experience to explore as well, a way to connect with other readers, share and discuss, that can form bonds outside your friends and family.

Thanks for the interview space. I’d like also to remind readers that taste in books is like taste in food or wine, uniquely yours. There are no right and wrong answers, no universal best books. Find a bookseller or someone you trust to learn your taste and stick with them, it will save you time and money, and make reading more enjoyable. Above all, discard books you aren’t enjoying. There isn’t enough time to finish a book that doesn’t work for you when you could be reading something that does. See http://www.poisonedpen.com for monthly tips.