RETAIL MURDER: Mystery Readers Journal (41:2): Summer 2025

Retail Murders is a versatile theme, as you’ll see by the variety of articles, reviews, and author essays in this issue. Retail Murders includes mysteries that feature coffee shops, bookstores, garden shops, and many other kinds of stores. We also have articles that focus on contractors, consultants, and others who sell their services. It seems likea lot of small business owners and customers are amateur sleuths. Enjoy! 

Upcoming themes. Plans for the remainder of this year include Northern California Mysteries and Cross-Genre Mysteries. We're still looking for articles, reviews, and author essays. If you'd like to contribute to either of these issues, send a note to: janet @ mysteryreaders . org

Mystery Readers Journal: Retail Murder: Volume 41, No. 2, Summer 2025

Buy this back issue! Available in hardcopy or as a downloadable PDF.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ARTICLES

• Apprehending the Snatchers and Sneak-Thieves by Ashley Bowden
• Retail Means Shoplifting by Rona Bell
• Death in Department Stores by Aubrey Nye Hamilton

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

• My Dead-End Retail Jobs by Elaine Viets
• Murder with Flowers by Rebecca Tope
• How Working Retail Enriched My Writing Life by Terri Thayer
• Experience as Inspiration by Karen Rose Smith
• Retail as a Character: How “The Treasure Chest” Shapes My Mystery Series by Joanna Campbell Slan
• My Contractor/Consultant Character by Dale T. Phillips
• Man’s Best Friend by Paul R. Paradise
• Hidden Rooms and Secret Passageways: Selling a Sense of Childhood Wonder by Gigi Pandian
• How a Real-Life Retail Shop Turned My Books with a Fictional Retail Shop into Best Sellers by J. Michael Orenduff
• Welcome to Suite and Savory—Can We Help You? by Donalee Moulton
• Von Stray and Mrs. Omloop’s Orderly Shop by Andrew McAleer
• Peter Fallon Sells History by William Martin
• The Shopping Center Cats by Sharon Marchisello
• A Shell of a Lot of Fun by Molly MacRae
• My Mysterious Connection to Retail by T. C. LoTempio
• Working Retail Can Be Murder by Dorothy Howell
• How a Camera Shop Led to Deadly Negatives by Russell Hill
• Learning the Spa Business with Aroma Wellness Mysteries by Daryl Wood Gerber
• Behind the Vintage Candy Series by Kaye George
• Small-Town Crime: Writing from Real Life by Trish Esden
• Finding Comfort in Bookstores and Cafés by Alex Erickson
• “Two-Eleven Just Prior” by Jim Doherty
• Serving Up the Urban Cozy by Cleo Coyle
• Come for the Mystery, Stay for the Shopping by Michael Cooper
• Flowers and Murder? by Kate Collins
• Donut Shop Drudgery by Nancy Coco
• Death of a Salesman by Lynn Cahoon
• Welcome to Deputy Donut by Ginger Bolton
• Taking a Bite Out of Crime—One Sale at a Time by Leslie Budewitz
• Murder, Mocha, and the Penny University by Ellis Blackwood
• A Cozy Shop in Omnipodge by Mike Befeler
• Selling in a Mystery by Anne Louise Bannon
• Shop Till You Drop … Dead by Tessa Aura

COLUMNS

• Mystery in Retrospect: Reviews, by Lucinda Surber and Lesa Holstine
• Children’s Hour: Retail Sales Mysteries by Gay Toltl Kinman
• Crime Seen: The Retail Murder Hallmark by Kate Derie
• From the Editor’s Desk by Janet A. Rudolph

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Subscribe now in order to be sure to receive all 4 issues for 2025: Themes: London II; Retail Sales; Northern California; Cross-Genre Mysteries. 

If you're a PDF subscriber, you should have received download instructions. Print copy subscription copies should be received this week. International subscribers will receive their issues within two weeks. 

PDF Contributor PDF copies will go out in the next few days. 

Contributors: Thanks so much for your great articles, essays, and reviews!