Peter Mock loves to read mysteries, and he loves to sell them too
Peter Mock at McIntyre’s Books says he’s got the best selection of mysteries in the South. The legendary McIntyre’s is a popular destination bookstore located in Fearrington Village, eight miles south of Chapel Hill, NC, in the rolling hills of Chatham County, and conveniently just across the highway from where I live. Tucked into a pleasant cluster of shops and gardens and restaurants next to a pasture filled with Belted Galloway cows, the store is known for its barn venue, its cookbook selection, and its support of local authors. It’s also known for Pete Mock, lead buyer and Resident Mystery Guru, sole judge and jury for the store’s annual Beltie Awards for best mystery of the year. His mystery selection fills the shelves of a large room.
Talking with my local bookseller over local brews
On a mild January evening, I spoke with Pete over local brews, sitting in café chairs outside the famous Fearrington House Inn.
“How did you get into the bookstore business?” I ask.
“After the first semester of my sophomore year of college,” Pete replies, “I dropped out and spent most of my time lying around on my father’s couch and reading. One day, he said, ‘If you’re going to stay here, you need a job.”
Pete’s job experience thus far was limited – being a bag boy a Fowler’s was a highlight. He saw a Help Wanted sign in a bookstore window. He liked books. How hard could it be? He walked in, very short resume in hand. It was Chapel Hill’s iconic Intimate Bookstore.
“Brenda and Walter Kurault were sitting there smoking (people used to smoke in those days), so I said, ‘I’m here about the job.’”
They looked over his resume. They stopped at his other job listing: Mall Santa. They looked at him with skepticism.
“I was a short skinny kid,” Pete says, “with a preppy Oxford shirt.”
“Prove it,” they said.
He gave them his best “Ho Ho Ho.” Then he pulled his “Santa ID” out of his wallet – a tiny photo of Pete dressed in full Santa regalia, his dad sitting on his lap.
“They hired me that moment. I started that night. I’ve been selling books ever since.”
McIntyre’s Books responds to changes in the market
When Pete joined forces with owner Keebe Fitch at McIntyre’s in 1995, the road to Fearrington Village was still a two-lane winding through the countryside. Now there’s a four-lane highway and a stoplight. “It brings more people to the store,” he says. “But the biggest change, of course, is Amazon.”
He explains that before Amazon, every bookstore had the same kinds of offerings, including travel, reference, fiction, nonfiction, and children’s, but now “brick and mortar stores” have to specialize. “We haven’t sold a dictionary in years,” he says, “but now we can focus on what we’re good at – cookbooks, mysteries, and a broader selection of titles.” Now, he says, when you come to McIntyre’s, you can find things you can’t find anywhere else – like the carefully selected books in Pete’s Mystery Room.
The room started with two bays of mystery fiction. “Now we’re the biggest selection in the South,” he says. Pete got his love of mysteries from his dad, who was always reading them too.
What fueled the explosion in the popularity of mystery fiction?
“Women really raised the profile of the genre,” Pete says. In the eighties, he explains, writers such as Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky introduced their gritty women detectives, and readership exploded. Women became rabid fans of the genre.
Now he fills the barn.
How are authors selected for the shelves of the Mystery Room?
“Writers get my attention by word of mouth,” Pete says. “Chester Himes, one of the classic Black mystery writers [author of Cotton Comes to Harlem and a score of other novels], was an early favorite. And did you know that Banville writes mysteries now?” Not relying on the best-seller list for his selections, Pete scouts writers for the award and for his shelves by reading their books. “We got to know Craig Johnson [author of the “Sheriff Longmire” series] before his TV show. His first reading, maybe 4 people came.” Now he fills the barn.
Pete reads up to 150 mysteries a year. I’ve seen proof: the back of his car is always stacked high with what to read next.
The Beltie Mystery Prize
His biggest innovation in the store has been the establishment of The Beltie Prize (named after the white and black belted cattle in the pasture out front). Mystery writers vie for his attention with their advance reader copies. You can tell the store is gearing up for the announcement of the winner when the mystery room starts to sport yellow “DO NOT CROSS” crime tape. “Keebe does the crime tape,” he says. “I do the selection.”
What does Pete love about being a bookseller at McIntyre’s? “The freedom!” he says. “It’s the coolest job.” He also loves the sense of trust between the booksellers at the store, and the chance to meet both his very interesting clientele and new authors. “I get to use my mind,” he smiles. “It’s not boring!”
How’s it going these days at McIntyre’s? “We’ve had the best holiday season ever,” he says.
INDIGO FIELD is coming to McIntyres!
And in March? In March, Pete and Keebe will be introducing me from the stage at the Fearrington Barn. I’ll be reading from my new novel, INDIGO FIELD, from Regal House Publishing. A novel about the grisly history of an abandoned field in the South. It’s got murders and mysteries in it, but it’s not quite the right genre for Pete’s award.
His blurb for the book, however, made me cry.
“What an incredible story of the past and present colliding, revealing scars upon the land that can’t be healed until the pain is confronted and atoned for. Told with such superb skill, and a prose style that left me weeping, Marjorie has crafted a novel that will resonate with the reader long after the last page is turned.“
—Peter Mock
Thank you, Pete!
And thank your local indie bookstores, they are a writer’s best friend.