Cat Stories

Baseball Cat
Garrison Allen
Thirtysomething Penelope Warren owns a mystery bookstore in Empty Creek, Arizona, and does some amateur sleuthing on the side. When the owner of the Empty Creek Coyotes, a minor-league baseball team, is found murdered, police chief Dutch Fowler asks Penelope to help find the killer. Penelope, her cat Big Mike, Dutch, and two doughnut-eating detectives have a fine time plowing through clues on their way to solving the crime. Set against a background of beautiful scenery and minor-league baseball (described in a manner that would please W. P. Kinsella), the novel moves briskly, with Allen supplying plenty of entertaining banter. What makes it all work, though, is the cast of well-drawn characters, especially Penelope herself, surely one of the wittiest and most intelligent women ever found in a cozy mystery. (Even Big Mike the cat works--and not just for cat people.) If P. G. Wodehouse had liked baseball and hung out in the Arizona desert, he might have written a novel much like this one.
Booklist Review; May 1997.

Only the Cat Knows
Marian Babson
The diverting new feline-themed cozy from British author Babson (Please Do Feed the Cat) takes readers to a remote castle where a wealthy business tycoon, Everett Oversall, lives surrounded by a harem of female employees. One of them, Vanessa, takes a fall and lapses into a coma. Vanessa's twin brother, Vance, who happens to work as a female impersonator, is sure that someone tried to kill his sister, so he dons her clothes, fakes amnesia and infiltrates Oversall's compound. There, Vance-as-Vanessa encounters a host of eccentrics, all of whom might have been jealous of his sister, who was Oversall's personal assistant. The only trustworthy member of the household is Vanessa's devoted cat, Gloriana, who proves crucial in sniffing out whodunit. If character development is a tad weak, Vance's constant efforts to keep up his feminine persona will keep readers' attention.
Publishers Weekly Review; April 2007.

Curiosity Killed the Cat sitter
Blaize Clement
Clement's assured cozy debut introduces an appealing heroine, 32-year- old Dixie Hemingway, who's given up her stressful job as a sheriff's deputy in Sarasota, Fla., to become a professional pet sitter. When Dixie calls early one morning on her latest client, a silver-blue Abyssinian named Ghost, she finds a dead man face down in the cat bowl. The contact person (a requirement when you leave an animal with a sitting service) has no clue where Ghost's owner, gorgeous Marilee Doerring, could have gone or why her locks were changed before she left. Unfortunately, when Dixie locates Marilee, she, too, is dead. And that makes Dixie suspect number one. With sensitivity and insight, Clement develops a plot line involving a bigoted, radio psychologist, Carl Winnick; his repressed wife, Olga; and their gay teenage son, Phillip, who's a talented pianist. The difficulties and humor inherent to the pet-sitting business, a local law-enforcement hunk with romantic potential and crisp writing all bode well for future entries in the series.
Publishers Weekly Review; November 2005.

Scratch the Surface
Susan Conant

Fans of Conant's Dog Lover's mysteries (Bride and Groom, etc.) will lap up the first installment of a new series, which introduces Felicity Pride, the author of a mystery series about cats. When Felicity returns to her Boston-area home from a book signing, she's a little freaked out to stumble on a very dead corpse, and a very live cat, in her vestibule. Her shock, however, doesn't prevent her from trying to get as much publicity as possible from her discovery. Envisioning her book sales skyrocketing after she catches the killer, Felicity learns that solving a murder in real life is a lot harder than writing a mystery novel. Yes, the setup, a cat mystery about a cat mystery writer who finds a real body, is a trifle meta. But Conant, never precious, takes the opportunity to poke gentle fun at some of the conventions of the cozy genre. Side-splittingly funny and very clever, this book is just about purr-fect.
Publishers Weekly Review; May 2005.

Cat Stories
James Herriot

Books by the beloved Yorkshire veterinarian, best-selling author of such titles as All Creatures Great and Small, Every Living Thing, and James Herriot's Dog Stories, are always welcome. Cat lovers in particular will cheer this collection of favorite cat tales from Herriot's veterinary practice. Retired after over 50 years in practice, Herriot continues to entertain young and old alike with his storytelling ability. His current collection includes 'Alfred, the Sweet-Shop Cat,' 'Boris and Mrs. Bond's Cat Establishment,' 'Moses Found Among the Rushes,' and others. Guaranteed to warm the hearts of readers of all ages, this book is sure to be in demand.
Library Journal Review; August 1994.

The Unscratchables
Cornelious Kane

In a world inhabited entirely by animals, Max 'Crusher' McNab is a bull terrier working in the San Bernardo Slaughter Unit (homicide). He's a good cop, dedicated and hardworking, but when three local goons for hire (Rottweilers) are torn apart and the evidence points to a cat as the killer, McNab is assigned a partner. Part Siamese Cassius Lap works for the FBI (Feline Bureau of Investigation), and he is McNab's opposite in every way: shiny clean, always dressed in a stylish suit, and a dedicated soy milk drinker. Not only is the unlikely duo of McNab and Lap one of the best new pairs in detective fiction, but The Unscratchables is a perfect mix of wit, classic hard-boiled style, and perceptive commentary on modern society, all coming together to create one of the best mysteries of 2009. What makes this novel stand out is the fully fleshed and utterly believable world created by Kane. Every detail of his fantastical setting is clearly thought out, from locales to the noirish slang of the cops; yet the reader is never subjected to an info dump: all the details are neatly parceled out along with the compelling and fast-paced plot.
Booklist Review; May 2009.

My Cat Spit McGee
Willie Morris

The New York Times obituary for Morris, who died August 2, stated that he was survived by his wife and son but failed to mention Spit McGee, the author's beloved white cat. After reading this slim, sentimental memoir (made poignant by Morris's death), one wonders what is going to happen to Spit now that his master is gone. As he recounted in his best-selling My Dog Skip, Morris had always been a dog man; in his hometown of Yazoo, MS, he and his boyhood friends considered cats to be 'dumb, vain and coldhearted, not to mention remote, calculating, and sinister.' What changed his mind was the Cat Woman, Morris's second wife and a true ailurophile, and a little white kitten with one blue and one gold eye. Saving Spit's life at his birth, Morris became a fascinated cat watcher but not always a responsible owner; he often neglected to have his pets neutered. Believing that Spit was the reincarnation of Skip, Morris tried to teach him a few tricks but soon learned that 'cats ain't dogs' and that Spit McGee was Spit McGee.
Library Journal Review; October 1999.


Cat Fear No Evil
Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Once again sleek feline sleuth Joe Grey and his tabby partner, Dulcie, prove to be the best snitches the Molena Point, Calif., police ever had in this superior cat cozy, the ninth entry in Murphy's popular series (after 2003's Cat Seeing Double). A sophisticated thief has been targeting the small coastal town, stealing prize jewelry and paintings, despite elaborate security measures. Also missing is a vintage 1927 Packard belonging to Joe's owner, Clyde Damen. The ante is raised when a waiter at an art gallery opening suddenly falls dead and a local realtor gets blown up in a gas explosion. Meanwhile, someone is stalking interior designer Kate Osborne, whose apartment is invaded by ferocious tomcat Azrael, an old adversary of Joe's, and the avaricious Consuela Benton is leading astray troubled teenager Dillon Thurwell, whose mother is having an affair with a suave art collector. As usual, the relationships between the lively human characters and the talking cats in whom they confide their problems provide as much interest as the crime solving. The intricate and absorbing plot keeps the reader in suspense throughout.
Publishers Weekly Review; February 2004.