An assassin tracks a terrorist across a continent. A soon-to-be-divorced woman finds herself becoming an avenging angel. A private eye wrestles with personal demons as he tries to bring murderers to justice.

It’s all in a day’s work at Murder by the Book, Houston’s independent bookstore specializing in thriller and crime fiction. For more than 40 years, the shop on Bissonnet adjacent to Rice Village has been a haven for fans of mystery, crime, and more. The recent tagline says it all: “These stories are killer.”

Current owner McKenna Jordan says she never planned to buy a bookstore. “Both my parents were Houston police officers, so crime was kind of all around,” says Jordan, and reading was big in her family. Her mother read a lot of true crime from author Ann Rule, and her dad loved history. Jordan cut her teeth on Goosebumps legend R.L. Stine, shopping for his titles at both Murder by the Book and Half Price Books, before graduating to Agatha Christie, Stephen King’s short stories, Ann Rule, Anne Perry, and Dashiell Hammett. 

In 2003, while majoring in violin performance and English at the University of Houston, she landed a job as a bookseller at Murder by the Book, working under then-manager Dean James and founder Martha Farrington, who opened the shop in 1980. By summer, Jordan was working nearly full-time as the primary book buyer. She was promoted to manager when James returned to being a librarian, “and then, Martha wanted to retire,” Jordan says. “She saw in me someone who had enthusiasm and ideas, and a passion for books, but could also do the business side of things. A lot of people love reading, but there’s a lot more to owning a bookstore.”

Jordan bought the store in 2009. In the 17 years since, she and her team have weathered hurricanes, a pandemic, the rise and fall (and rise) of big-box bookstores like Barnes & Noble, the e-reader craze, and Amazon. “I always tell people we are the Cheers version of a bookstore,” she says. “When you come in, it’s ‘Hi, fill-in-the-blank. We’ve got a great book for you today.’ We know a lot of our customers’ reading tastes, and that’s why they keep coming back, because we try to make sure that every time they leave, they’ve got a book that they’re gonna love.”

All nine team members are avid readers of thrillers, true crime, mysteries, and other mystery-adjacent genres, and they can’t wait to share their enthusiasm and recommendations with anyone who steps through the door. The feeling is mutual among authors.

Bestselling author Ashley Winstead, who lives and writes in Houston, calls the store “a gem that has helped put Houston on the literary map.” What makes it special, she says, are the people. “The staff is the real reason the biggest authors flock to it,” she says. “There’s no one more knowledgeable, passionate, or creative about promoting suspense than the team at Murder. Readers love visiting because they work hard to build a feeling of community, and authors love visiting because coming back feels like seeing old friends.”

Winstead makes an in-store appearance this summer for her newest novel, Hot Girl Murder Club—it’s one of more than 200 events that Murder by the Book hosts annually, featuring more than 150 authors. 

With events accounting for a third of its sales, the shop has hosted virtually every important name in mystery and thriller writing—P.D. James and Colin Dexter from England in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and Michael Connelly, Lee Child, and Daniel Silva thereafter. Building those relationships has compounded over time. 

Paul Doiron, the Maine-based author of the Mike Bowditch mystery series, considers Murder by the Book a must-stop, particularly when on tour (he’ll celebrate the series’ 16th entry, Storm Tide, there this July). “I’ll show up and see that Craig Johnson or C.J. Box was just there, and I’ll feel like I’m part of a larger community of writers and readers,” he says.

Writer Robert Crais cold-called the store when he finished his first novel, The Monkey’s Raincoat, asking whether the staff would consider reading it. Thirty-nine years later, he’s the bestselling author of the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike detective series. “The gathering of fans and friends at the store is like a family reunion you actually want to attend,” he adds, with Murder by the Book remaining a “touchstone for members of the mystery fan and writer community.”

Riley Sager, whose latest novel, The Unknown, comes out in August, recalls his first event there in 2010. Three people showed up, “yet everyone there treated me with the same grace and respect usually reserved for megasellers,” he says. Staff told him there’d be more next time. “It took a few years, but they were right!” he says. His last event drew more than 400 readers. 

Jordan points to Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train as another example of how the store helped a new author have a big impact. “They brought her over [from the UK], and we sold something like 800 copies of the book, straight out of the gate,” Jordan says. Championing writers in their early careers has not only generated goodwill but also paid dividends, she adds. Authors like Connelly, who pens the Bosch detective series and the Lincoln Lawyer and Renée Ballard mysteries, often schedule appearances at the bookstore to show their support, knowing that selling between 400 and 500 books in an evening “can be a huge deal for us,” Jordan says. 

While mysteries and thrillers are Murder by the Book’s stock in trade, the shelves have grown beyond the core. When Chesli Lobue Zimmerhanzel joined the team as a bookseller, she brought with her a love of horror. Now, readers seeking some terror can also find it on the shelves. Mystery infused with fantasy, or romance and comedy? That’s available, too.

Jordan readily admits that while the reading part of owning a bookstore is fun, bookselling is still a business. “I am constantly reassessing and doing inventory management,” she says. “And we are notoriously proactive in seeking out authors we want for events.”

Mysteries have been around ever since Edgar Allan Poe published The Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841, widely regarded as one of the first modern detective stories. Since then, the world has been gifted with other great investigators who solve crimes, from Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot to Harry Bosch. What keeps readers coming back? 

“In life you don’t always get justice or resolution, but in the majority of crime fiction you do,” Jordan says. “There’s something satisfying about finishing a book and knowing that at least some element of justice has been served.”