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In the Book Bar: JANE DOE by Victoria Helen Stone

Neither of our silly cats was in the mood to do book poses tonight, so it was sister Sofia to the rescue, even though this book features a cat character 🙂

We got this book as an Advance Reader’s Copy at the RT Booklovers Convention in Reno, which we just returned from and which was, as always, wonderful! The book will publish on August 1, 2018.

We packed this one in our carry-on and are so glad we did; we couldn’t put it down. It’s the story of a woman named Jane who has recently lost someone very dear to her. She knows who is responsible and is hell-bent on getting revenge, however she can.

Jane keeps calling herself a sociopath, and we have to say, she is the most relatable sociopath we’ve ever encountered! As the book goes on, we found ourselves so engrossed in her story, and really rooting for her. At the same time she is plotting revenge, she meets a guy, and adopts a cat, which, of course, we loved 🙂 And they kind of pull her back into life and help her overcome her pain.

JANE DOE is a really suspenseful page-turner with an engaging main character and strong secondary characters. We give it five bonito flakes!

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Review: CAT AMONG THE PUMPKINS, by Mandy Morton

We’ve been reading a lot of cat cozies lately, and this is a quite original addition to our collection!

The original “cat mysteries” – written by Lilian Jackson Braun and Rita Mae Brown – involved cats as sleuths themselves, at least to an extent. Braun’s cats help their human solve the crime by giving him clues, while Brown’s cats – and other animals – actually speak to each other (though humans can’t understand them), have strong, memorable personalities, and take a very active part in solving the crimes. We personally like Brown’s Sneaky Pie series the best because we like when the animals are memorable and have main roles. It seems like most cat mysteries published lately feature cats mainly as props; they’re really not even characters. Everyone knows cats are darn smart and make excellent sleuths so we’re not sure what that’s about…

Anyway,  Mandy Morton‘s No. 2 Feline Detective Agency series is a welcome deviation from that. In this series, there are only cats; no humans and no other animals. Since the cats alone are the sleuths, they are obviously anthropomorphized. That may confuse some readers. But we find it fun!

In Cat Among Pumpkins, the second book in the series, Hettie Bagshot, a former musician, runs the agency, along with her trusty sidekick, Tilly Jenkins, an arthritic older tabby whom Hettie took in. Later, an aging outdoor tomcat named Bruiser – our favorite! – shows up tired and weary of the outdoors (though too proud to outright admit it). They let him stay in the shed out back and give him a role as driver of the motorcycle-with-sidecar, in which they do their sleuthing. These cats are all drawn so well. Hettie has a little catnip-smoking habit, while Tilly enjoys her tea 🙂

Oh, we should mention that Morton is British and the books are set in England and full of English flavor, which we loved. There’s a Guy Fawkes day celebration that the town is preparing for, and the riverside towns have Stratford-upon-Avon-type names such as Much-Purring-on-the-Rug, Much-Purring-on-the-Chair, and the like. There’s an Indian family – the Doshes – who run a store chain. The mother, Pakora, desperately wants her son, Balti, to learn to run the business, but Balti wants to play sitar professionally – and he’s quite good at it, according to musician Hettie. We enjoyed the camaraderie between Hettie and Balti.

When Mavis Spitforce, who is researching an old, unsolved mass murder, is found dead with her research papers torn up and stuffed into her mouth, Hettie and Tilly must delve back into the cold case to find the killer. Along the way, they come across a good deal of very colorful suspects. Details bring the town and its inhabitants to life and the mystery is well-paced and plotted. We did not figure it all out until the very end. But, as always for us, it’s all about the main characters. They drive the story. And we definitely want to spend more time with Hettie, Tilly, and Bruiser!

Four delicious bonito flakes!

(Above pic is of our sis, Rhea, with the book.)

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Sneaky Pie Brown Rules!

We are major, major fans of Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown in this household! Sofia poses with the very first in the Sneaky Pie series, Wish You Were Here. The best cozy mystery / cat mystery writer around, in our humble opinion. Brown’s cats – Mrs. Murphy and Pewter – and dog, Tucker, are all so smart and their personalities really shine through. And, most importantly, they help their human solve the crimes. So often, with the current crop of cat mysteries, the cats just sit around looking cute. They have a very minor, if any role. Cats are smart! Use them, mystery writers!

Anyway, our human is working on just such a cat mystery. And, inspired by Sneaky Pie’s Tucker, and our own dear little dog, Sofia, she has decided to add a dog sleuth 🙂

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Review: PURR M FOR MURDER, by T.C. LoTempio

Purr M For Murder is a really sweet cozy mystery and is the first, that I know of anyway, that is set in a cat cafe! Ms. Witty Kitty would so love to open her own cat cafe someday, so she was overjoyed when she saw the back-cover blurb on this one!

It’s actually set in a Deer Park, North Carolina cat rescue called Friendly Paws, which is owned by sleuth Sydney’s sister, Kat, but in order to raise funds for the rescue, the sisters organize a cat event in a local cafe (which is how the current craze of cat cafes in the U.S. began :)) Well, everyone in the small town is super excited for the cat cafe event, thinking it’s a fabulous idea for a fundraiser – which of course it is – except for Kat’s landlord, Trowbridge Littleton (what a great name!), who promises to do everything he can to keep the event from happening. He also owns an art gallery down the street, and, when Sydney shows up there to try to convince him to reconsider, she finds Kat already there, along with Trowbridge’s dead body. Sydney now has to prove her sister’s innocence and find the real killer. Of course Trowbridge is not very liked among the townspeople, so there are lots of possibilities for who the real killer is, and LoTempio keeps us guessing until the end.

I found all of the characters delightful, as well as the well-described setting, and Sydney is a savvy, endearing sleuth you really want to root for. What I always love about cat or dog mysteries, though, is watching the animal help solve the crime. Here, an orange tabby named Toby performs that function quite well. Toby is a bit of a wandering tom whose ways leads him to see certain things, making him very helpful to the woman whom it seems will become his chosen human, sleuth Sydney.

This is a fun cat cozy and only the first in what I hope will become a long series. Five delicious bonito flakes!

Above sister Katusha checks out our copy of the book, which WK found at the Scottsdale Civic Library’s little Friends of the Library bookstore.

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Review: A TALE OF TWO KITTIES, by Sofie Kelly

Sister Katusha poses with our copy of the book, which we bought at Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ.

Witty Kitty loved this cozy mystery set in a library and starring two cats with magical powers. Cats who can do magic – what could be more enchanting! Kathleen Paulson, head librarian in small town Mayville Heights, MN, finds the estranged father of a good friend, Simon, bludgeoned to death. It falls on her – and her cats – to prove to the head detective, Marcus, who happens to be Kathleen’s love interest – innocent. It is well known by the townspeople that Simon fought viciously with his father, and he has a motive and little alibi, so Kathleen’s got her work cut out for her.

As for the two cats: Hercules, a tuxedo cat, has the ability to walk through walls, and Owen, his grey tabby brother, the power to disappear at will. (Lots of cats seem to have that power :)) Kelly creatively makes good use of the cats’ magical powers in helping to solve the crime.

This was my first Sofie Kelly book – she has several in the “Magical Cats” series. I found the town to be well described, making me feel like I lived there, and the characters, including the minor ones, well drawn, making me feel like they were my friends. Kathleen is smart and resourceful, as you’d expect of a librarian, and easy to root for, and the mystery was adequately suspenseful without the murderer coming from out of nowhere, like I’ve seen in too many cozy mysteries lately. Kathleen ends up solving not on the the killing at hand but a crime from the past as well.

WK gives this one five bonito flakes!