We'd like your visit to mysterylovers.com to be as pleasant and useful as possible. We've provided some information here about finding books, making purchases and other topics but if you don't find what you're looking for please give us a call at 1-888-800-6078 or use our contact form to send us an email.
How to find books on our site
By searching
You can search for books on our site by using various combinations of Title, Author, Description or ISBN-13. When you enter an author you can use first or last name or both and authors may be entered as "Sue Grafton". It is not necessary to use "Grafton, Sue"
The descriptive information in the search includes the series character and setting for books in a series and also includes any summary or review that we have for that title.
You can also enter an ISBN-13 (or EAN) number for a book or other product and this will match if we carry that product. Note that you cannot enter 10 digit ISBN's as our entire system is ISBN-13 based. If you have no idea what the preceeding sentences are about then you're probably not going to be searching by ISBN number so don't worry about it.
Simple searches
The quickest way to find a particular book on our site is to use the Search box located on the upper left hand side of every page. The words you enter will be matched against title, author, description and ISBN-13 and only books which contain all of the words entered will be matched. Partial words will also be matched so that "die" matches die, died, studied, etc.
For example: (in all these examples, the quote marks are shown to clarify what is being entered, they shouldn't be entered in the actual search)
- A search for "Sue Grafton Silence" will return Sue Grafton's S is for Silence and may also return other Sue Grafton books in which the word silence appears in the description of the book.
- A search for "Sue Grafton" will produce all Sue Grafton books as well as other books in which Sue Grafton is mentioned in the description.
- A search for King will produce Stephen King as well as Ross King, Kate Kingsbury and other similar authors with King in their name as well all books with the word King, full or partial, such striKING, etc.
Advanced search
If the simple search doesn't get you what you want, you can try the Advanced Search by clicking the link just below the Simple Search box.
The advanced search features a search box in which you can enter words you are searching for. To the left is a drop down box with choices of All of these words, Any of these words and The exact phrase. Examples are:
Search for "s is for silence" would produce the following results:
All of these words: only books with all four words (full or partial), note that in this case every word containing the letter s will match that criteria but only books that also contain some part of all of the other three words will be returned.
Any of these words: books with any of these four words (full or partial) so all books with the letter s in author, title or description plus all books with any of the other 3 words.
The exact phrase: only books with the consecutive words "s is for silence"
You can control items of information are searched by checking or unchecking the boxes beneath the search box. Thus, if you are looking for books by C.J. Box by searching for Box and checking only author you would avoid getting books which contain the word Box in the title or description.
You can further limit your searches by picking only a certain category, such as Mystery Anthology. If you choose a category, such as Mystery, you can check the Include Subcategories box to include all categories within Mystery such as Anthologies, Christmas Mysteries, etc.
Still didn't find it?
The book you're looking for may be out of print or we may have just misspelled the author's name or some such. Please use our Book Search form to send us a request and we'll see what we can find.
By browsing
Using the list of categories on the left-hand side of the page you can bring up lists of books or other products according to category. If you choose a category that has sub-categories then you'll get a listing of all items in all the subcategories along with a menu at the top of the sub-category choices.
The results of a search
Once you make a search you'll see one or more pages of results or perhaps a page telling you that No Products Matched the Search Criteria.
What you'll see
At the top of the page is a count of the number of books found and a Search Again button which will take you to the Advanced Search.
If your search produced more than one page of results you'll find an index of pages which you can click on to move from page to page of results.
Next you'll find a series of links for sorting the results, which are discussed in the section on Sorting the Results.
Following the header information will be search results showing up to 10 items per page. For each returned item the following information is shown:
On the first line
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The Title: clicking on the title will take you to the detail page with full information about that product.
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The Author: clicking on the Author will produce a search for all books by that author
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The Price
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The publication date shown as a month and year
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An add to cart button which places the item in your shopping cart and takes you to the shopping cart page. See How to Buy for more information.
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A check box for adding multiple items to your cart. See How to Buy for more information
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A link that takes you to the top of the search page
On the second line
- The format such as Hardcover, Paperback, Trade Paperback, etc. The distinction between Paperback and Trade Paperback is that the former are the smaller, less expensive paperbacks (also known as Mass Market Paperbacks) while the latter are the larger, more expensive variety.
- A link labelled Series if a book is part of a series of books with the same character. Clicking on the series link produces a search for all books in that series.
On the third and subsequent lines
- The short description. If this is part of a series it will describe the series and the sequence of this book such as "3rd in the Kinsey Milhone series, California PI" If not part of a series there will be a short description of the book. If the short description is longer than 2 lines then a More link will take you to the Product Detail page.
Sorting the results
Once you make a search which produces a page or more of results the books will be listed according to publication date with the most recent (or future) publications shown first. You can sort these results in any one of several ways.
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Title-sorts the results according to title
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Series-sorts the results according to series characters and within that by series sequence from first to last. Once you sort a search result by series you can click on series again and it will be sorted by series and sequence from the last book down to the first. The small triangle next to the word Series indicates the order. Pointing up is from first to last, pointing down is from last to first.
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Author-sort the results according to author
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Date Published-sorts the results according to publication date. Initially resulst will be in order from most recent (or future) dates shown first. Clicking on pubication date again will resort according to oldest pubication date first. A small triangle next to the words Date Published indicates the order shown. Pointing up is from oldest to most recent. Pointing down is from most recent (or future) to oldest.
How to Buy
Registering and Loggin In
 Registering as a customer on the site is different from being on our Email Newsletter list. Even though you receive our Email Newsletter, you are not registered as a customer until you complete an order on the site or register separately as a customer without placing an order.
Once you are a registered customer you can log-in in the box for that purpose on the right hand side of the page. Any items you place in your cart while logged in will remain in your cart when you come back later and log in again.
Password Problems
We've all had the frustrating experience of forgetting our password for a site. If this happens to you at mysterylovers.com there is a solution. On the right side of the page in the Login block (see above) click on the Forgot password? link. This will take you to a form where you can enter your email. A message will be sent to that email with a new password created by the system. Go back to mysterylovers.com and enter your email address and the password from the email you received. A cut and paste is the simplest way to do this. Once you do that you'll be logged on. At that point you can click on the My Account button in the Login block and you'll be taken to the page for editing your customer info. Right on top you see your email and password. Simply change your password to whatever you would like, confirm it and then press the update button at the bottom of the page.
Important note: When you update your password it will continue to display a long string of asterisks even if your password is shorter. This is normal and you will find that your correct password has been entered.
The Shopping Cart
 You make purchases by adding items to your shopping cart. Once you have chosen all the items you wish to buy you must checkout. Once checkout is complete your order is placed and you will receive a confirming email for your order.
You can place items in your shopping cart by clicking on the Add to Cart button found on the search results pages as well as many other pages on the site such as the Gift Guide.
When looking at a search page you can also place multiple items in your shopping cart by clicking the checkbox next to each item you wish to purchase. Once you have checked all the items you would like then click on the Add Selected to Cart button found at the top and bottom of each search page.
Whichever method you use to add items to the shopping cart the result will be take you to the Shopping Cart page. Here you will find a list of items in your cart.
Each item in your cart has a Delete button which will remove it from the cart. For each item there is also a quantity. Each time you add a particular item to the cart, the quantity is increased by one. If this is not what you intended you may adjust the quantity and then use the Update button to apply these changes. Changing the quantity to zero has the same effect as using the Delete button.
The cart also has a Clear Cart button which will remove all cart contents.
The Continue Shopping button will take you back to the page from which you entered the cart.
The Checkout button will begin the checkout process.
For information about paying for your order, shipping costs and times please see our Shipping Policy
The Wish List
Once you are logged in as a registered customer you have access to a Wish List where you can keep a list of books that you are interested in purchasing at a future date. In the block on the right side of the page titled Cart you will see a link for Wish List which will take you to a display of your list.
You add items to the Wish List by displaying the product detail for the book you would like to add and then clicking the Add to Wish List button (rather than the Add to Cart button). Items will remain in your Wish List until you delete them.
You add items from your Wish List to your Shopping Cart by displaying the Wish List and then clicking the Add to Cart button for each item you wish to add. Note that adding an item to the Cart does not remove it from the Wish List. You must delete items from the Wish List individually.
Your Previous Orders
Once you have logged in as a registered customer you will have access to your previous orders placed on the site. Please note that orders you placed under the previous version of the site (before Nov. 2006) will not be reflected here.
You'll see a list of previous orders and clicking on the order number link will display the original order. The order reflects the order as you sent it to us which may differ from what we sent you or have pending. If you cancelled some part of your order because the book was unavailable and added other titles, these changes will not be reflected in the order you see.
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