But if not, I would add that week’s money to a jar he placed on the counter. If I came in next Saturday, and there was a mystery that I HAD to have, I could skip a week. The deal was I could take the book for 35 cents.

So (Binky lowered his voice), if you tell anyone about this, I’ll deny it, understand?’ Every Saturday you pull out your change, and you’ve got 35 cents for a paperback, and 15 cents for the bus home. The problem is you don’t have enough money. Five-O-Five (he gave me the name because the Granville Street theatre let out at five on Saturday, and it took me five minutes to get to the store), and the moment I saw that book I knew it had your name on it.

“‘A bookseller gets to know his customers, Mr. “‘That book’s right up your alley, isn’t it, son?’ he said. I looked up and there he was, shock of hair and rumpled clothes with gravy stain on his tie. Three times I went back and thumbed through the treasure displayed on the shelf by the floor … until a dark shadow fell over me. I put it down and walked to Duthie’s Mystery Section, but the lure was too great. “So as a kid I come down the staircase to the Paperback Cellar, and wow! … what’s this? Seven hundred pages of history’s 300 most baffling killers and how police used the latest forensic techniques to hunt them! What more could I ask? The motherlode was here. Jay Clarke has fond memories of Bill Duthie’s cohort who managed the Paperback Cellar (prior to David Kerfoot), the colourful communist Binky Marks. “Duthie’s at Robson and Hornby was our Shakespeare and Company,” said Clarke in 2016, “and not a week goes by that I don’t mourn its passing. Clarke proceeded to write more than a dozen novels after his first and best-known title, Headhunter, appeared in 1984, co-written with John Banks and Richard Covell. Bill Duthie personally arranged to have Clarke’s first manuscript published in a limited edition of one copy, as a surprise, and Duthie’s legendary communist cohort Binky Marks, who managed the Paperback Cellar downstairs, was similarly supportive. One of the countless authors directly encouraged by Bill Duthie was Jay Clarke, a lawyer who crafted successful thrillers under the pen name of Michael Slade. LOCATION: 919 Robson Street, formerly the main outlet for Duthie BooksĪt this location in 1957, next to the Vancouver Public Library at Robson and Burrard, Bill Duthie founded Duthie Books, a bookstore that doubled as a literary Mecca until the family business collapsed in 2010.

Ghoul by Michael Slade