While the finale came to me long before the final pages the story was so well executed I didn't care. Very short novella well worth your time ( )

A disguised man waits until the end of store hours to visit Mystery, Inc., a popular specialty bookstore in a New Hampshire seaside town. He knows that the owner will send the employees home while he himself helps a serious collector willing to spend a lot and ask many questions. The disguised man's purpose for the visit is as evil as can be. He is a bookstore-buying serial killer. He goes into a book store he wants to buy, but instead of making an offer to the owners, he murders them in a way that looks like a natural death, then lowballs the grieving family and acquires the store and its stock.
But Mystery, Inc. is special. Not only is it a beautiful store full of valuable first editions by Dickens, Christie and Doyle, but the owner is exactly the sort of man the killer would like to be himself, content in his work and happily married. Unaware that the customer who keeps adding books to his tab is actually planning on killing him and stealing the rare books, the friendly owner begins telling the story of his haunted bookstore.
Number 21 in The Mysterious Bookshop's Bibliomysteries. ( )

Mystery Inc. by Joyce Carol Oates is a 2015 Mysterious Press/ Open Road Media publication.

This book is part of the BiblioMysteries publications in which well known mystery authors submit short mysteries tales about Deadly books.

In New Hampshire a bookstore anyone would covet has become an obsession for one man, who is determined to have it, by any means necessary.

While the story is quite short, and it won't take the reader very long to determine the way of things, I found this sinister little tale quite entertaining. Trying to imagine the possibility of owning such rare and antiquated books, is mind boggling. If such gems do exist, behind glass, or locked in a safe somewhere, the very idea of it is enough to overwhelm the senses of any die hard mystery fan.

The descriptions of the store and the supposed collections the owner has acquired over time was what kept my imagination in high gear. The mystery itself wasn't really much of a mystery though, and ended up being rather predictable. However, the writing was, as always, superb, except that I am puzzling over the use of the first person narrative in this particular case.

All the same, it's always a pleasure to read anything by Joyce Carol Oates. 4 stars ( )

(ARC was provided to read and review.)

Mystery, Inc. is a short story in the now Death Sentences series (former Bibliomysteries, which I found more fitting). These are novellas or shorts by popular authors, all dealing with a mystery in the world of books. No matter if Sigmund Freud has to deal with an unwelcome visitor or deadly secrets in the London Library, if you like this form of "Lethal Literature" as much as I do, you will surely find something in the series to suit your taste.

In this short, we get a first person account from Charles Brockden, (of course, he doesn't tell us his real name), a dedicated lover of antique books and owner of several bookshops. Now he has set his eyes on Mystery Inc., a beautiful old bookstore in New Hampshire. The shop's owner doesn't know it yet, but Brockden is certain, soon he will be the new owner of the store and all the leather bound and exquisite first editions will be his.
There's just one minor problem, he has to get rid of the momentary owner first. But Brockden is sure of himself, he will, and not for the first time, perform an untraceable murder. As it goes with arrogance, it can lead to a minor oversight or tiny neglect and things might not go according to plan.
A particular highlight was for me the name of the shop's owner, Aaron Neuhaus, as Neuhaus is a chain of bookshops in Germany, which made it sound all the more real.

Turning the pages, Oates takes us on a delightful tour through the bookstore, which is just a joy for everybody who loves books. As a fan of her work, I have to admit, I've read better short stories from the author, but there's no doubt, Mystery, Inc. is well worth a look.
I liked the style of the story a lot as it reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe and Oates has also an eerie surprise for the reader in store. ( )

Mystery, Inc. is a delightful tale about a specialty bookshop owner who has made a habit of acquiring competing stores, not by purchasing them, but by murdering their owners and then buying the stores at bargain basement prices from the grieving heirs. As the title suggests, the bookshops at issue specialize in mysteries, and our villain, though an enthusiast of the genre, has not read enough of his own stock. Not surprisingly, his scheme does not work out quite the way he planned when he comes up against Aaron Neuhaus, the proprietor of Mystery, Inc. What is even more satisfying than the resolution of our narrator's encounter with Mr. Neuhaus, however, is the store's gruesome history and the ambiguity of Mr. Neuhaus's own acquisition of it. As Mr. Neuhaus says,

"If you are an aficionado of mystery-detective-crime fiction, you know that someone, in fact many people, and many of them ‘innocent,’ must die for the sake of the art — for mystery’s sake. That is the bedrock of our business: Mystery, Inc. Some of us are booksellers, and some of us are consumers, or are consumed. But all of us have our place in the noble trade."

I received a free copy of Mystery, Inc. through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )