One of the few mystery bookshops around the world, and one of the dwindling number of bookstores in Pioneer Square, Seattle Mystery Bookshop will close up at the end of the day on September 30th. William D. Farley originally opened the store in 1990. When he retired in 1999, he handed off the business to the current shopkeep JB Dickey.

In January of 2016, a successful GoFundMe bought the store a year of life, but ultimately they were unable to find a buyer.

In a long and rather informative blogpost published Monday, Dickey offers an incisive and critical recent history of all the local, national, and international forces conspiring to screw over independent bookstores without sparing himself in the telling. It really is something. But ultimately, as he writes:

"We all fought hard to keep it going for years but the sharp bottom line is people have not been buying enough books from us to keep it working for a long time. Time to say goodbye."