Book Review: Halloween in Cherry Hills

On this Mysterious Monday, we dip into Paige Sleuth’s Cozy Cat Caper Mystery series. Today we’re looking at the seasonally appropriate seventh book in the series, Halloween in Cherry Hills. This is the first book in this series we have read, and we found it to be short and sweet. Here’s the story…

Black cat goes missing at Halloween time

Kat Harper, of Cherry Hills, Washington, gets involved in the somewhat desperate search for Midnight, an all-black cat who has gone missing just days before Halloween. Willow Wu was watching Midnight while his person was out of town, and she doesn’t see how he could have gotten out on his own. Which means someone must have taken him, and if someone catnaps a black cat right before Halloween, they must be up to no good, right? Clearly, this cat has to be found, and quickly.

Feline and spiritual guidance to find the cat

This is where Kat’s tortoiseshell kitty, Matilda (Matty), comes in, as Kat takes her out to join in the search. And before you say, “That is a really dumb idea,” let me tell you that Matty is useful in the search because of her superior night vision and sense of smell. More people should use search-and-rescue cats. But I digress.

In fact, Matty does find something useful: she draws Kat’s attention to a sign advertising the services of a spiritual guidance counselor, Madame Vood. When Kat reluctantly seeks Madame Vood’s help, Vood mentions that Kat is looking for a lost black man (Midnight, obviously), and he is nearby. She can’t be more specific than that.

So, Midnight is somewhere close, but where? And who took him, and for what purpose? The answer to that last question is truly something we never thought of, and of course I’m not going to tell you what it is.

The verdict

Halloween in Cherry Hills is a good book in what I think must be a fun, easy-to-read series. It’s fairly short, and the end made us very happy. We enjoyed the story and its resolution, and we liked the interaction between Kat and her boyfriend, who has this hang-up about not letting Kat see the inside of his house. I know—weird, right? Then there are the cats: Midnight of course, and Matty, who we would like to get to know better. We look forward to reading more books in this series!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account.