Former Inmates

Former Inmates 

Marie Ary is the daughter of Western parents, spent time in Southern California and graduated high school on the Eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. She came up here 25 or so years ago for college and has pretty much never left. A corporate refugee, Marie wandered into the Seattle Mystery Bookshop as a dutiful daughter who accompanied her mother Pat, a major mystery aficionado. She worked here part-time in the Summer of 2007, and was the first and only person we called when we needed a full-time bookseller.
       Married to Ben, a native Bainbridge Islander and fellow baseball fan, Marie prefers a good story.  Give her a strong narrative in a vivid setting, told through well-developed characters, that engages the mind and heart. She enjoys traditional mysteries and cozies, private eye, and accurate history from writers like Lillian Jackson Braun and Rita Mae Brown, Earlene Fowler and Craig Johnson, Mary Daheim and Carola Dunn, Raymond Chandler and Rex Stout, Barbara Hambley and Peter Tremayne.
   The last mystery she solved helped Nancy Drew crack the case on Larkspur Lane.

Susan Dennis was our first computer guru. In fact, our original e-mail address was through her. She read tons of books, kept a running commentary about each on her personal website, knitted constantly, was a long-time baseball fan, and collected mugs.

Karen Duncan was a long-time customer before she began working here. She was a member of a reading group that used to meet here in the early days of the shop, a group run by Sandy. She had experience in the publishing side of the biz, was our British mystery expert and was a rabid Mariner's fan as well as a quilter. Karen left to join her aunt's small business.

Sandy Goodrick was born in Santa Monica, CA, and educated in Portland, OR, and Berkeley, CA, where she lived for many years. She began reading mysteries in Seattle in 1989, and she starting helping out with the newsletter and bookkeeping at Seattle Mystery Bookshop in 1994. Her trajectory has been Nancy Drew to Sherlock Holmes to Rex Stout to Agatha Christie and the Golden Age. She enjoys a wide range of mysteries, from Lee Child and Michael Connelly, to Hazel Holt and M. C. Beaton. In the recent year she added Jasper Fforde and C.J. Box to her list of favorites. She especially enjoys British cozy or traditionals, and she's always on the lookout for another Patricia Moyes, Caroline Graham, Jill McGown, Ann Granger, Robert Barnard, or Janet Neel.

Tammy Lenz-Domike, once upon a time, was a sales rep calling on SMB, to sell Signet and later Penguin paperbacks and also to fuel her hunger for mysteries. She quit about the time her son Tony turned 2. Bill hired her in '93 to fill in during JB's paternity leave. Both Tammy and her husband Dan (who is the general book buyer at Seattle University Bookstore) have deep roots in the NW bookworld. Her first book job was at an antique shop in 1976, but she officially began her career at the 4th & Pine Waldenbooks with Vi Bruster in 1981. Tammy was indispensable to JB.

Erin O'Donnell was the youngest member of the staff but already had extensive experience with books. Erin was in charge of the small press ordering, as well as the UK import ordering.

Ramona Reese was a long-time customer who convinced us to hire her to work Saturdays. She had an enormous smile and an infectious laugh. She was a baseball fan too. Ramona left to move to Toronto to be close to family.

Cathie van Veen first came to the bookshop as mainly a reader of cozies but gradually expanded her horizons to include other sub-genres as well. Cathie tended to the shop's website.