Whilst I was on vacation last week, we explored the area around my sister’s home.¹ In one small town, we wandered into a used bookstore and I had an out-of-body experience: I stepped through the door and was immediately swept away into a fantasy. The store had clearly gotten the best of the owner: the piles of books to be sorted were almost as tall as I was; he sounded tired; and his website was stuck in the early internet: function over form. In a moment, I saw myself buying the store, reorganizing it, establishing reading groups, and turning the business around. It was a powerful experience but clearly a fantasy. I have no intention of moving to the Missoula Flood plain, a place where it averages over 105 degrees F on a summer day, and where you have to drive 5+ hours to Portland for shopping, shows, or art museums.² And owning a used bookstore in the NYC area is a losing proposition.

But it is a pleasant fantasy.

Which brought me, when I returned home, to the Conan Flagg series by M. K. Wren. I haven’t read these books in a while (they were hiding behind my Stabenow’s). Flagg is a used bookstore proprietor in a small Oregon shore town, the kind of town on the flat coast of Oregon that will either be a) swept away by a Tsunami or b) slowly inundated by rising waters from climate change.

Flagg, a retired “secret agent” of Native American descent, owns a home overlooking the wide, windswept beaches. Apparently his bookstore makes enough money that he can not only employ a full-time manager, but pay her enough that she can drive a Porsche.³ One of his cars is a Jaguar. He spends the evening playing classical music on a baby grand in his living room – he’s that kind of guy.

When the book opens, someone from his former life is on assignment, spying on Flagg’s shop just as it closes, on a dark and stormy evening. The person spying on him is “made” but hangs around anyway. That night, in the midst of a torrential rain and windstorm, Flagg’s neighbor, a retired naval captain, leaves the comfort of his home to go for a walk on the beach. His body is found washed up later. An accident, the local authorities insist.

But the captain’s wife knows better: he hated the beach and she had to force him to go out there even on a beautiful sunny day. Flagg, in addition to owning a bookstore, is also a “consultant” and takes the case.

Many of the clues in this book are so bookstore-specific: a mis-shelved book, one that his manager was sure they hadn’t had because the dead guy had asked for it and she had checked. A mysterious Dell sales rep, afraid of the bookstore cat, who shows up on a day that he isn’t scheduled. The bookstore cat who steals and hides papers she finds in the store. A few clues are not: the Russian trawlers mysteriously hovering off the coast, an Eastern European scientist who has retired in Holliday Beach.

Although many of the books in this series take place in a small town, and much of the action involves Flagg’s bookstore, I wouldn’t call these “cozy” mysteries. Flagg has more of an upscale gumshoe feel to him: he ends up in the hospital after getting pushed downstairs; he takes on Russian agents. They are terribly early-70s.

These are fun books to read. You can get them e for a cheap price. But they’re not available on paper in retail anymore.

Perhaps you need to spend an afternoon poking around a good used bookstore, searching for them…

---

1. Putting a plug in here for the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center just outside Baker City. Totally cool museum. Plan to spend all day. Bring lunch. Visit when it’s not going to be over 80 degrees F outside, or you’ll miss half of it. We have to go back when it’s cooler. ↩︎
2. Not that we do any of these things in Manhattan. But we could if we wanted to. That’s why you pay to live in Manhattan: because then I have the choice not to do things. As opposed to a small town where I still couldn’t do things but wouldn’t have a choice to. ↩︎
3. Fantasy indeed. ↩︎