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CAT WITH A CLUE
by Laurie Cass
NAL, August 2016
331 pages
$7.95
ISBN: 0451476557


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Minnie Hamilton is the acting director of library in Chilson. Her co-workers want her to apply for the job of director and they all have their reasons. Minnie isn't sure she wants all that responsibility, at least not quite yet. For one thing, who would drive the book-mobile? That's her job, and Minnie is pretty sure that anyone else wouldn't have the same rapport with Eddie, the book-mobile cat who also happens to share life with Minnie. There are other, more mundane reasons, and Minnie would rather not have to explain them all to the people with whom she works.

One early morning at the library, Minnie literally trips over a dead body. Someone has stabbed Andrea Vennard, in town for the funeral of her great-aunt Talia DeKeyser. Minnie's life grows exponentially more difficult almost instantly. There is blood, a lot of it. Once the police are through with the scene, there is fingerprint dust, also in vast quantities. Someone has wreaked havoc in the room used by the Friends of the Library for their book sale. The Library Board is interviewing candidates for the job that Minnie is pretty sure she doesn't want. Somebody breaks into the book-mobile and tosses the contents - literally. This results, indirectly, in Eddie tossing his cookies on the expensive Italian heels of one of the interviewees - not something likely to endear Eddie or Minnie to that person, as one can imagine.

Minnie is pretty sure that all the crimes, as disparate as they may seem, are connected somehow. She wants to find the killer, so that the library's reputation will remain unstained. Minnie believes that the police, in their various incarnations, are not viewing this situation as the unified collection that it is but rather as a group of distinct major and minor infractions. Even her new boyfriend isn't sure she's correct.

This is the fifth BOOKMOBILE CAT mystery. Some of the characters in previous books make appearances in CLUE. Cass has a good sense for when a recurring character will serve her purpose as opposed to needing somebody new in town. Not only does this keep her characters growing, it adds a small element of diversity to Chilson, which could use it. I concede that it's difficult to inject a significant level of diversity into any small town in northern lower Michigan. Cass also can lay a red herring with the best of them; this may be a cozy, but the story line is demanding and delightful. There is another book scheduled to come out a year from now. Eddie will be on life number six; may we hope for at least his prescribed nine?

§ I have been reading and reviewing mystery fiction for over a quarter of a century and read broadly within just about all genres and sub-genres. I have been a preliminary judge for the Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Press Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Contest for at least 25 years. I live in Northern lower Michigan with my spousal unit, one large cat, and 2 fairly small dogs. My Sherlockian (BSI) nom-de-plume is VR; my license plate is BSI VR

Reviewed by PJ Coldren, September 2016

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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