One of the things I like to do in mystery bookshops is to check out the names of the special sections. The categories here at Seattle Mystery Bookshop are very good: there's the Sherlock section, there's the animysteries, the cheap thrills, the capers and crimes for kids. There's also a section just for bibliomysteries, where I was happy to find a copy of Vincent McCaffrey's novel Hound (published by Small Beer Press, where I'm an editor). And, this being Seattle, there's the northwest section, and there's even a "murder in the far northwest" section, where they have the Chabon, so that must be Alaska.
The problem I was facing, when I arrived in Seattle to sign copies of my novel The Manual of Detection (a finalist for the 2010 Hammett Prize, I've just learned!), was my lack of an umbrella. I don't like being without one, and the kind folks here at the bookshop have kindly given me one. In return, I've been making bookmarks. The bookmarks are hand-stamped, and each has a mystery written just for the recipient. Here's the one I made for Adele, one of the booksellers here.
The stamp I've been using for these bookmarks has a latin inscription, the meaning of which had been a mystery to me. But in addition to an umbrella, the good people here have given me the solution. Fiat justitia ruat caelum means "Do justice, let the sky fall."
Good enough. It can fall all it wants to, now that I have my umbrella.
I'll read at Elliott Bay tonight, and then it's off to Portland, and then to San Francisco, where I'll read on Saturday with Laurie R. King for the SF in SF series. Come find me if you'd like a bookmark of your own.
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