Marian Babson, Only the Cat Knows

Only the Cat Knows

Marian Babson

Dunne, June 2007, $22.95

ISBN 0312332386

Affluent business mogul Everett Oversall lives the Hugh Heffner dream as he surrounded by beautiful females who work for him. However, his idyllic life changes when his gorgeous personal assistant Vanessa takes a nasty fall; she ends up in a coma in what Everett insists was a tragic accident; he vows to cover her medical expenses.

Vanessa's twin brother Vance thinks otherwise as he believes someone tried to kill his sibling. A professional female impersonator, Vance decides to dress up as his sister Vanessa albeit suffering from amnesia so he does not have to know about life inside the Oversall castle. His goal as a she is to uncover who wants his sister dead. To his shock instead of one obvious meanie, he finds a houseful of nasty felines with motives to kill anyone in the way of their ambitious plans; Vanessa in her job was clearly in the way of someone. Vance trusts no one except Vanessa's cat Gloriana.

This is a fun amateur sleuth tale entirely because of Vance who sort of reminds the audience of Dustin Hoffman's two roles in Tootsie. Vance as Vanessa is the only fully developed character as the rest of the cast is more stereotyped with Everett being the sultan of his harem and his one dimensional females difficult to distinguish between each one of them or whether their respective IQs are greater than their bra size. Still fans who enjoy something different in their mysteries will appreciate Vance's undercover effort impersonating his sister.

Harriet Klausner