Book Review: Frankencat

On this Mysterious Monday, we bring you a brief review of Frankencat, a Whales and Tails mystery by Kathi Daley. This is book 13 in the series. We read and enjoyed the first book in this series, Romeow and Juliet, but then we sort of lost track of the books (they come out so quickly!). So we were happy to catch this one in time for Halloween.

The plot

Caitlin Hart and her friend Tara O’Brian run a coffee bar/bookstore/cat lounge called, appropriately, Coffee Cat Books. They are holding a book discussion on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein when a suddenly violent storm hits, knocking out the power and breaking up the meeting. But with the help of a mysterious cat who bolts in suddenly, Cait discovers one of the group members, Paula Wainwright, lying dead in the storeroom, a knife in her chest. The back door is locked from the inside, so no one else could have gotten in and out without someone knowing, so it seems that one of the group members has murdered Paula during a break in book group. Cait and Tara, with help from local law enforcement, set to work to find out which one it was. To do so, they must interview everyone who was there, and anyone else they can find who was connected to Paula.

The cat

The cat in this book is Frank, a brown tabby who has been sent to Cait to help her figure out who killed Paula. This is apparently a regular thing for Cait, which we thought was fun. Cait communicates with Frank by asking questions; he meows if the answer is yes. Frank doesn’t appear in many scenes in the book, but he is instrumental in pointing Cait toward some important clues (the body, for one).

Our verdict

While we love the concept behind Frankencat, and the book does have some pleasingly unexpected twists from Paula’s past, we found that there were just too many potential suspects to keep track of. Since the main method of investigation involves interviewing book group members, much of the story is told through long stretches of dialogue that were often not riveting enough to hold our interest. That said, the solution to the mystery was not what we’d expected at all, so we were pleasantly surprised by that turn. And the overall structure of the mystery—by which I mean the sequence in which Cait receives bits of relevant information—is nicely done. Plus, the book is set at Halloween time and has a pretty great cat!

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. Thank you!