The Diamond Cat

July 31, 1995
Poor Bettina Bilby. Ever since her father's death, she's been living with her hectoring mother, without even a cat of her own to cheer her dreary life. And now a freak storm promises to ruin her long bank holiday weekend, trapping her inside, where she's at the mercy of a leaking roof and Mother Bilby's continuous carping-especially about Bettina's lack of sense in agreeing to take in four boarders for the weekend. The boarders are cats, of course-what would a Babson tale be without them?-and a lovely lot they are: irascible Adolf; pampered Bluebell; depressed Pasha; and Enza, so named because her owner opened the window one day and, well, in flew Enza. Then, in the midst of the storm, a carrier pigeon dies in the backyard, leaving Bettina to deal with its cargo of diamonds as well as with a steady stream of shifty strangers who, under transparent pretenses, try to gain access to the Bilby home. In her latest comic tale, Babson (Nine Lives to Murder) mixes high-tech theft, high-flying ransom and a denouement that finds Bettina savoring a sudden but welcome freedom. The Diamond Cat is a jewel.

Marian Babson writes a witty, delightful mystery in which the cats are just a scratch below the people in importance and a bank holiday turns into a scrabble over diamonds and murder. Juanita MacMahon's warm alto flows through the narrative punctuated by excellent changes of voice for each character. Mrs. Bilby's shrill voice is so exasperating that this listener wanted to throttle her. Bettina, her daughter, remains remarkably sane, and MacMahon portrays her with a calm and pleasant voice with only a few mutterings under her breath. Babson and MacMahon make a great team that compares favorably with the more familiar cat stories by Jackson Braun, narrated by George Guidall. P.G. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine