Farewell, Kate's Mystery Books

Kate Mattes started me writing mysteries. We've all known that she was trying to sell the store for quite a while now, but just heard about this last night and I'm sad. Thank you, Kate!

Kate's Mystery Books closing on August 1
An e-mail from the Porter Sq Neighbors mailing list.

Many of you have been aware that I have had the building which houses the store on the market for awhile. I have finally sold it. I of course have mixed feelings about this but know it is the right decision for me. The new owners have allowed me to stay on for a while but Kate's Mystery Books will be closing on August 1st. Between now and then, everything in the store will be sold at 25% off. On Saturday, August 1st, we will be having a packing party from 11-5 AND we will also have our Annual Yard Sale (books $1 and under) at the same time.

I hope you can get in in the next few weeks to say good-bye although I won't actually disappear. We will be having author events at different venues and of course we will have the annual holiday party so there will be opportunities for the mystery community to get together. You will get notices of them from me.

It is sad though to close the store. I hope you can join us on August 1st to celebrate the good times we have had and to help pack everything up. I know we can do it, as we have done it before. (Remember the bus?)

It is been a true joy for me to have had the opportunity to me such interesting and diverse people and i will definitely miss you.

Best, Kate


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Kate's Mystery Books
2211 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA. 02140
617/491-2660

Hours: Sun.-Mon: 12-5
Tuesday: CLOSED
Wed-Thurs.: 12-7
Fri.: 12-6
Sat.: 11-5

Happy anniversary, Kate!

Today, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Kate's Mystery Books. Owned and operated by Kate Mattes, one of the first directors of Sisters in Crime and the recent winner of a Raven from the Mystery Writers of America, this tiny shop has been instrumental in launching a thousand careers. Others at the party tonight (6:30-8:30 if you're in the neighborhood) will tell the more famous tales. This is mine.

I've told this story a dozen times or more, and it's all true. Kate Mattes got me started writing mysteries.

You see, I used to write serious nonfiction. I was a journalist who wrote books. Which meant I wrote serious, researched books on serious, heavy topics. But what I read for fun, obsessively and happily, were mysteries. Which meant that I got to know Kate Mattes, because her store, Kate's Mystery Books here in Cambridge, is sort of ground zero for mystery lovers – a place where authors sign, writers meet, and the recommendations are always good.

So when my last, maybe not so heavy book came out, I ended up talking to Kate about it. That book, The Feline Mystique, came out in 2002. That December, as Kate was planning her usual holiday bash, she said I should come sign at the party. I said, "But Kate, Feline Mystique is not a mystery."

She responded, "Believe it or not, Clea, there's a big crossover between women who love cats and mystery readers." (Those of you know Kate's store, by the way, will know that in addition to books, the first floor is packed with black cat memorabilia.)

And so I did. I happily joined the ranks of Linda Barnes and Robert Parker, Kate Flora and Dana Cameron, BarbaraNeely, and more than a dozen others in signing and greeting and laughing and eating. And drinking. There was drinking. And so, at the end of the evening, when Kate turned to me and said, "Clea, you should write a mystery," it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

I started the next day. Happy anniversary, Kate.

(Pictured: Kate and her Raven at the 2008 Edgar Awards.)