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Cat Who Brought Down the House
by Lilian Jackson Braun
The inimitable Koko does it again.
I think there ought to be public service messages about small towns like Cabot Cove, Maine, of “Murder She Wrote” fame, and Pickax, a town in Moose County “400 hundred miles north of everywhere,” that is the setting for most of the twenty-five books in the “Cat Who” series. Visitors and newcomers to these murder capitals often have very short life expectancies.
Once again Jim Qwilleran, journalist and heir to a great fortune, is poking into local mysteries. This time, they involve the fate of the old Pickax Opera House, and glamorous Thelma Thackeray, who has returned to the town where she was born after a long and successful career as a restaurant owner in Hollywood. Who kidnapped Thelma's parrots, and did her brother die accidentally, or was there foul play? Aiding in the proceedings, of course, is Koko, one of Qwilleran's two Siamese cats, who has a knack of providing obtuse clues—e.g. howling in the night at the exact time of a murder, and knocking books off the shelf whose titles have cryptic meanings.
The usual cast of Pickax characters is here, and some of them are characters. There are the sometimes silly sounding business establishments such as Tipsy's Tavern and the local newspaper, the Moose County Something. And, of course, there is a lot about the behavior of cats—there are 1.5 cats for each person in Pickax. We also get dollops of Moose County folklore, as Qwilleran is putting together a book on the subject. It is all these extras that carry the story, as it is pretty obvious early on who is the villain.
The Cat Who Brought Down the House makes for pleasant, if not exactly edge of your seat, reading. Add a point to my rating if you're a cat aficionado or if you've liked other books in this series.
Title: Cat Who Brought Down the House
Author: Lilian Jackson Braun
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN: 0399149422
Review written by: William L. Keogan
Reviewer's Rating:7.5
Reader's Rating: 9.00
Reader's Votes: 3
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