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Title: Catch As Cat Can by Rita Mae Brown, Michael Gellatly, Sneaky Pie Brown ISBN: 0553580280 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.39
Rating: 2
Summary: Not up to the usual standard
Comment: I'm a huge fan of the Mrs. Murphy series; they're my favourites of all the cat/crime genre. Unfortunately, the latest volume doesn't come up to the standard set forth in the series so far. It reads like a rough draft turned in under a deadline. While the actual premise is interesting enough, it's both unoriginal and so far-fetched that it's hard for this ordinary person to care about it. The writing is wooden and stilted, more a recitation of events than a good story. The new characters are lifeless -- not even a budding romance has any real zing -- and the old characters are predictable. Nothing new is happening in the town of Crozet; let's eat some orange glazed cinnamon buns. Even the animals can't really save this one; they talk a lot but don't really contribute much. A fan of the series will want to read _Catch as Cat Can_, but get it out of the library.
Rating: 5
Summary: A fun tale cosy readers will adore
Comment: In the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia lies the small bucolic town of Crozet located in the middle of Albermarle County. It is a special, magical town unlike any other because all the animals are sentient and can talk to each other including cross-species communication with one "muted" exception: that of the inferior humans who have not evolved enough to be on their level. Since man is the only species who kills for reasons other than food and defense, the animals of Crozet may have a point.
Currently Crozet is suffering from a crime wave with three murders, a stolen truck, an unexplained $530,000 in one of the homicide victim's safe, and other lesser felonies. Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, her gray tiger cat Mrs. Murphy, Pewter a fat gray cat, and Tucker the Welsh Corgi are as usual in the middle of the investigation and hope to close the case soon.
Any new Mrs. Murphy mystery is a joyful reading experience and CATCH AS CAT CAN is no exception. Rita Mae Brown and her feline Sneaky Pie have co-authored an adult mystery that appeals to the child in all of us. Although Harry and her ex-husband are still dating, the fair maiden has a gorgeous new suitor who seems to good to be true. Still Harry and her "owners" will never allow her romance to get in the way of justice; but then again she is human.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 4
Summary: It takes a village
Comment: CATCH AS CAT CAN and the entire Mrs. Murphy series belong to the "cozy" school of murder mysteries. "Cozy" refers to setting in mystery genre and Crozet, Virginia, an actual place, is certainly conceived in the tradition of the pleasant English village. Even with a body count that would rival some violent inner city neighborhoods, the author makes it irresistible, evoking the beautiful western Virginia countryside through natural seasonal imagery. The series' regular human and animal characters are appealing. It is for them and the setting that you go back to this series when in need of something disposable, the storylines and some of the characterizations having become increasingly simple, almost irrelevant over the series' development. You also go back for the satire on new South/old South values and mores. As Brown observes, it would not be a proper Southern social event if someone did not get drunk or a fight did not break out--in tuxedoes and designer dresses. Brown plays with the genre as well: less confident writers worry about making realistic circumstances by which the amateur sleuth becomes involved and solves the mystery. Not here: Crozet is a place where the sheriff feels beholden to first inform the reigning social matriarch of every development and depends upon the gossip lines and family pets to get the job done. Procedure? Never heard of it. Sly irony keeps this series afloat, saves it from the saccharine.
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Title: Claws and Effect by Rita Mae Brown, Sneaky Pie Brown ISBN: 0553580906 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 29 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Tail of the Tip-Off by Rita Mae Brown, Sneaky Pie Brown ISBN: 0553801589 Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd) Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Pawing Through the Past by Rita Mae Brown, Itoko Maeno, Sneaky Pie Brown ISBN: 0553580256 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 30 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Cat Who Went Up the Creek by Lilian Jackson Braun ISBN: 0515134384 Publisher: Jove Pubns Pub. Date: 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun ISBN: 0399149422 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: 03 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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