MYSTERY SHOPS: Until 1990, Book Carnival in...

MYSTERY SHOPS: Until 1990, Book Carnival in Orange was the only Orange County bookstore specializing in mysteries. But with whodunits being the top-selling fiction genre, three more mystery bookstores have opened: Mystery Ink in Laguna Beach, the Green Door Mystery Bookstore in San Juan Capistrano and It’s a Mystery to Me in Yorba Linda. . . . “It’s a genre that’s just exploding with very excellent writers,” says Book Carnival’s Ed Thomas, above, who ran a general bookstore until 1986. “I could see the handwriting on the wall about chain stores.”