Welcome to Exhibit B.!
Hey there! Welcome to the shop. I'm Sarah D. Bunting, chief cook and bottle-washer at Exhibit B. Also the...only cook and bottle-washer, at the moment? Hee.
Exhibit B. is a specialty store focusing on true-crime books and ephemera. I do have a bricks-and-mortar space, but until we're a bit closer to herd immunity, most of what the shop does will happen here in the virtual arena. (Not least because the shop is a teeny little thing in which social-distancing protocols would only allow me and, like, 1.5 customers.) That includes stuff like author events, which I can't wait to host, on Zoom or in person (like, literally one person, singular...did I mention the shop is tiny?) (I'm joking! all three of you can come!); and themed "installations" by friends of the shop.
For the moment, I'm focused on getting the teetering ziggurat of inventory into the system and in front of your eyeballs; and continuing to fill out the shelves with genre classics, mid-century oddities, and recent best-sellers. Drop a bookmark or get on the Exhibit B. mailing list* to stay up to date, or follow the shop on Insta and Twitter, @exhibitbbooks in both places.
* "You're not one of those pesty outfits that sends an email every 2 hours, are you?" God, no. We're talking once a week. You will get sweet discount codes nobody else does, though.
Looking for something I don't have in stock? Need help tracking down a first edition? Stuck for a gift -- or on how to get rid of your nana's three groaning shelves of Ann Rule? Email me -- exhibitbbooks@gmail.com -- or send a DM. I'm happy to help.
Thanks for coming by! Now let's find you something to read. -- SDB
Sarah: I just arrived via the link from Best Evidence and was fascinated by your concept. You seem to have side-stepped the “true crime” pigeon hole and fallen into what I call the “real crime” slot. That subgenre has always been a little sketchier because real crime tends to be harsh, whereas true crime can be prettied up and turned into near-literary respectability.
As a long-time crime writer (journalist and and novelist) I have some gems in my own library but I am not ready to part with them. (Ovid Demaris was once my hero; Gus Russo wrote the best analysis of underground power in SoCal that was ever published; Frank Ragano and Selwynn Raab are great sources of atmospheric color.) But I jumped over to Exhibit B hoping to find a means of publishing my own work: Everybody Lies, the story of a magnificent crew of burglars and an equally magnificent FBI crew who tangled in 1972. The crime, a bank burglary pulled off by yeggs from underworld Youngstown, became the trigger for a bruising and eventually bloody skirmish beside the Mafia Highway between Cleveland and Youngstown. Lies, deceptions and a continuing con job based on the chief burglar’s contention that the vault break-in was aimed at Tricky Dick Nixon. That manufactured narrative has made the Laguna Niguel bank burglary into a notable “great heist” regularly chronicled on cable TV and in movies.
But alas, you seem to traffic in already published tales in book form. Have you ever thought about branching out into original material, in ebook form or in self-published print-on-demand. Organized crime, the integral element of this story, has a limited appeal among heirloom publishers today and there are, I am sure, lots of tales that will compel readers with the particular, not to say peculiar, taste in crime stories.
Just asking for a friend.
Evan Maxwell