The newest entry to Cambridge’s bookselling scene, we step inside Bodies in the Bookshop with co-founder Richard Reynolds
Words by Phoebe Harper
There’s nothing quite like getting lost in a mystery – a desire to uncover who or whydunnit before being informed of the outcome – it’s about both the puzzle and the pure escapism.”
For Richard Reynolds, there is nothing so immersive as getting lost in a great story, especially one that features both mystery and murder. “Our competitive nature loves a good mystery, as we want to be taken on a journey where we identify for a brief period with the characters we’re reading about in an attempt to discover whodunnit before it’s revealed to us – wanting a good puzzle to chew over, as there’s nothing worse than guessing too early the perpetrator of the dastardly deed,” he says.
As a writer, it’s an art form to master, following a structure that plays with the reader’s suspense until the grand climax. Once mastered, it’s an addictive formula readers can’t get enough of, and perhaps goes some way in explaining why, to this day, Agatha Christie remains one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time. “It needs to be pieced together to reveal the bigger picture, which shouldn’t become clear until the last piece is slotted in –
that ‘a-ha’ moment!”
Richard’s own appetite for reading mystery and adventure began in the mid-60s, progressing from Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five to Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps and Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines. Meanwhile, his thirst for detective fiction was ignited by the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers’ The Nine Tailors. Since that time, it has become a lifelong passion, with Richard working for over 40 years as the crime fiction specialist at Heffers Bookshop.
A bloody good story
Today, this passion has culminated in the launch of Richard’s own brick-and-mortar bookshop, which he runs with co-founder Jon Gifford, owner of the Oleander Press – home to Whipplesnaith’s The Night Climbers of Cambridge.
The pair first crossed paths in 2013, when Jon approached Richard to work on a series of Golden Age detective stories (books written between 1919 to 1945) including J S Fletcher’s The Charing Cross Mystery, William Le Queux’s The Doctor of Pimlico and Christopher St John Sprigg’s Fatality in Fleet Street, all published under the London Bound imprint.
“The ensuing years had us discussing various publishing opportunities, and in May 2022 – a few months prior to my retirement from Heffers – Jon asked me to curate my choice of Golden Age detective fiction under the Oreon imprint,” Richard elaborates. “We have published 25 books so far, including ones by authors R E Swartwout with The Boat Race Murder, George Birmingham’s The Hymn Tune Mystery, Victor Whitechurch’s Murder at the College and William Gore’s There’s Death in the Churchyard.”
Following these years working together reissuing detective fiction, Jon and Richard toyed with the idea of opening their own bookstall, although Richard admits to being slightly put off by the idea of early starts and inclement weather. Fortunately, luck was on their side when the pair stumbled across a vacant premises while strolling through the city one winter’s evening.
Murder most foul
After opening in July of this year, you’ll find Bodies in the Bookshop down Botolph Lane on the former site of Jet Photographic. “As soon as we saw the premises, we believed it had potential, lending itself to being a bookshop,” says Richard.
The shop takes its name from Richard’s time at Heffers, where he set up an annual event that ran from 1990 to 2012. This event was named after a 1946 detective novel he had enjoyed: R(uthven) T(odd) Campbell’s Bodies in a Bookshop.
Inside, Richard describes the shop as ‘like a Tardis’, housing two floors of carefully curated crime fiction spanning new releases, second-hand books and collectibles, artfully arranged into a shelf layout organised and designed by Jon. “There’s a strong showing of general A to Z crime fiction, graphic crime novels, children’s and young adult detective fiction (anyone under 16 can join the Moriarty Club for 10% off all purchases) and books on and about Cambridge – crime, fiction and nonfiction, including those published by the Oleander Press.”
Unsurprisingly, the shop has a large section devoted to Golden Age detective fiction, including books by Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Josephine Tey, as well as books the pair published under the Oreon imprint. You’ll also find publishers like Dean Street Press, Moonstone, The British Library, Galileo Publishers and more lining its shelves, alongside Penguin green crime classics, Pan paperbacks, Gollancz crime fiction and plenty of other delights.
The perfect crime
A street steeped in history, the shop’s location just a few doors down from the home of Cambridge’s former hangman makes it quite the atmospheric setting for a bookshop specialising in crime. That, combined with the fact that it’s next to Espresso Lane and just round the corner from Fitzbillies, makes it a fantastic bookselling location. Richard says he also hopes to stage events at nearby St Botolph’s Church in future. But for now, he has his hands tied managing the shop, interacting with readers and staging the eye-catching window displays that may have caught your attention.
“I’ve retired from retiring,” he admits. “I missed too much interacting with other readers, finding out what they liked to read, which in turn had always fed my reading! We hope we’ll be able to share our love for detective fiction in all we do here.”
