Cat Raise the Dead: 03/06/23

Cat Raise the Dead by Shirley Rousseau Murphy (1997) is the third Joe Grey mystery series. This series serves as a missing link between the pre-cozy animal themed mysteries, such as the Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun and a more recent cozy series, Magical Cats by Sofie Kelly, where the animals are magic but don't get POV chapters.

Having now tried three books in this series, I've come to the conclusion that I prefer my animals to not have POV chapters, unless they are going to carry the entire novel, such as the Birdie and Bowser series by Spencer Quinn. This novel is 304 pages, but it takes half that time establishing that the cats are in fact cats, except that Joe can talk and be understood by his human.

The novel starts with a series of cat burglaries, taken from the point of view of the criminal. She happens to be spotted by one of our two cat protagonists and wastes even more pages trying to get away from the cat.

But these robberies have almost nothing to do with the larger mystery at hand — a series of mysterious deaths an disappearances at a retirement home. The actual mystery is maybe a hundred pages total and it's fighting for the readers attention with feline shenanigans and the cat burglar.

The fourth book is Cat in the Dark (1998).

Two stars

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