The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell

November 14, 2005
Bestseller Braun's disappointing 28th Cat Who... novel (after 2004's The Cat Who Went Bananas
) mostly follows journalist Jim "Call Me Qwill" Qwilleran as he runs around Pickax City, Mich., getting things ready for the town's blow-out celebration of its sesquicentenary. Many books ago, Qwill inherited tons of money and set up a foundation to benefit Pickax. Now that story line has become a caricature, with Qwill's fund popping up and financing yet another venture virtually every chapter. The "mystery" concerns Nathan and Doris Ledfield, a wealthy couple whose only heir is an obnoxious, greedy nephew. When late in the tale the Ledfields die... well, let's just say that no one will be surprised to learn who was behind their deaths, or what his motive was. Lame plotting isn't the only problem. The characterization is not just thin, it's anorexic. Perhaps it's time to put this series, which once defined feline fiction, to sleep. Mystery Guild main selection.

George Guidall obligingly takes us back to Pickax, 400 miles from anywhere, in this Lilian Braun offering. Koko, that Siamese super cat, dives from his master Qwill's balcony onto the head of a visiting architect. This folksy mystery has all the eccentric characters and kindly folk that Braun fans adore, and Guidall has his unique, and by now well-recognized, voices that bring the community to life. Fans can't get enough of the Cat Who . . . series, and hearing the novels performed by Guidall makes the experience all the more enjoyable. Listeners hoping to hear Koco's distinctive death yowl will not be disappointed. It's hard to imagine that anyone but George Guidall could make a feline hero so real. D.L.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine