The novel case of Whodunit Mystery Bookstore

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/08/2022 (1137 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EARL GREY

Life is full of mysteries, but it’s clear how Whodunit Mystery Bookstore has survived 15 years under the ownership of the Bumsteds, while Amazon and chain bookstores shoved out competition and, recently, a pandemic cut off small businesses from their clienteles.

The bookstore has worked hard to build a community of its customers and takes the extra step to connect its network of readers with their next tantalizing read.

“Of all the books that we have, we will make a list, and then a list of the people who bought the previous title if it’s a series or that author’s previous book. And then we will send them an email or make a phone call and say so-and-so has a new book, would you like us to put it aside for you?” co-owner Wendy Bumsted said.

It’s the sort of diligence one might expect from an historian and former educator like Wendy, or from her late husband and co-owner John Michael Bumsted, affectionately called Jack, an historian and former professor at the University of Manitoba. For that matter, it’s also the sort expected of a PhD in archeology and anthropology like the pair’s son, Michael Bumsted, who now runs the shop with his mother.

They are, in short, a bookish family.

In Wendy’s office — a small corner of the Lilac Street store that was once a florist’s flower cooler — stacks of books crawl crookedly upward in a cityscape of pages. There is a desk somewhere beneath the books and the computer monitor, and once the chair across from Wendy’s is cleared of a book or two, this is where some customers plant themselves for a regular chat.

It is Wendy’s version of “holding court” at the bookstore, and it is a smaller, less public version than her late husband Jack’s.

“Despite his appearances and general behaviour, he loved people,” Michael said of his father Jack.

“He could be very curmudgeonly sometimes. But in a way, people liked that, as well. It became part of his persona,” Wendy laughed, rolling her eyes playfully.

Jack would often gather customers around in the middle of the old store, which was located next door to the current space and was much more cramped.

“They would have all kinds of conversations going on. Some of them were quite arcane, and they would have some people who he had known from the university, but also other friends and other random people,” Wendy said. “It was quite fun, but in the other place it created a huge bottleneck. But he didn’t care. That was fine. That was why we did it.”

After moving into the new space in 2018, the store repurposed wood from its old location into bookshelves for the spot next door. Michael said the expansion flies in the face of the wider trend.

“We are now Western Canada’s final brick-and-mortar crime fiction bookstore,” he said.

But with the extra space, the Bumsteds expanded their stock to include new categories while trying to maintain their essence.

“There’s a real increase in the amount of juvenile fiction and local books and some that focus on activism and LGBTQ interests, while trying not to let go of what our core is, which is 19,000 crime fiction novels,” Michael said.

To sleuth out your next whodunit or literary what-have-you, visit the bookstore at 163 Lilac St. or go online to www.whodunitbookstore.com