Wendy Bumsted and her son Michael run Whodunit Mystery Bookstore in Winnipeg.Supplied
Most people browse their favourite bookstores. Wendy Bumsted bought one.
She and her late husband, Jack, had long been loyal customers of Whodunit Mystery Bookstore in Winnipeg’s Crescentwood neighbourhood. So, in 2007, when the store’s original owners decided to retire, the couple put in an offer.
Eighteen years after taking over Whodunit, the Bumsteds have relocated into a larger retail space, ramped up international orders and watched their customer base – and the entire mystery genre – evolve in unexpected ways.
“Especially since COVID-19, we have a much wider range of customers,” says Wendy, who these days runs the store with her son Michael. “And I would say our customers are now much younger.”
Michael agrees. He sees a large contingent of readers in their 20s and 30s turning to physical books in order to reduce their screen time.
Pop culture moments have also helped fuel interest in the mystery and true crime genres. Michael points to the 2019 defamation case between two British soccer WAGs – wives and girlfriends of soccer players – that the internet dubbed the “Wagatha Christie” trial. The nickname alone inspired mystery newbies to pick up books by iconic mystery novelist Agatha Christie.
“If Agatha Christie was still alive,” Michael says. “She would be driving Taylor Swift numbers.”
But perhaps the biggest change for the genre has come from BookTok. The book lover’s side of TikTok has become infamous for its ability to drive sales, especially among younger audiences. According to the platform, #BookTok has accumulated 370 billion views, which has played a role in “skyrocketing bestsellers, reviving backlist titles and informing reading habits.”
This is something the Bumsteds have witnessed first-hand. One of the backlist titles to see a resurgence in popularity is Cain’s Jawbone by Edward Powys Mathers. The book is a puzzle in and of itself: the pages were published out of order, so to enjoy the story, readers must reassemble the 100-page narrative themselves. Whodunit has stocked Cain’s Jawbone for years, but it wasn’t exactly a bestseller. Then, in 2021, TikToker Sarah Scannell’s videos documenting her quest to solve Cain’s Jawbone went viral – and sales exploded. According to publishing non-profit BookNet Canada, Canadian sales of the title rose by a whopping 235,600 per cent between October 2019 and June 2022.
The Bumsteds aren’t willing to move the store out of the neighbourhood where it has been located for decades.Supplied
These trends are good signs for the family business. In fact, the biggest barrier to Whodunit’s growth is actually space. The current location can only hold about 25,000 books, but Wendy and Michael don’t want to move of the neighbourhood that’s housed the store for decades.
Wendy isn’t surprised that mystery novels have gained traction on social media and with readers.
“It’s been a long-standing favourite genre forever, basically,” she says. “Part of the appeal, I think, is solving the puzzle. You’re turning the pages because you hope you’re going to [figure out] the mystery.”
The Bumsteds are seeing it across genres now, too – romance and even kid lit have begun borrowing mystery’s mechanics to hook readers. “John Klassen has a book, This is Not My Hat‚” Michael says. “And there’s a great children’s book… called There are No Bears in this Bakery, which is about a cat private detective wandering around the neighbourhood."
Mysteries are evolving to better reflect the world around them, too. Wendy has noticed surges in books featuring queer protagonists, translations from Korea and Japan, series set in locations outside North America, as well as more storylines focused on women’s revenge.
“In Canada, one of the foundations [of the genre] is British mystery novels and those classic Scotland Yard detectives, which are very white and very middle class,” Wendy says. “[There are] still a lot of those, and they are still popular, but they are now in the minority.”
Michael agrees. “There are more and more [books out there]; it’s easier to find a protagonist who you relate to.”