Marian Babson, Please Do Feed the Cat

Please Do Feed the Cat

Marian Babson

Dunne, Dec. 2004, $22.95, 224 pp.

ISBN 0312284985

After a grueling book tour in the United States, Lorinda is thrilled to be back in her English home with her cats Had-I and But-Known in the village of Brimful Coffers. Mystery writers like Lorinda live in a neighborhood within the village, helping one another out and being there to listen to one another's troubles. After Lorinda sleeps off the jet lag she learns that a little girl was run over by a car while fellow mystery writer Gemma was there walking the dogs.

She also learns that fellow author Machu has a new girlfriend Cressie who is making everyone's life miserable, especially Machu's cat whom she has put on a diet. Authors Adele Desparta and Opal Duquette are both visiting friends in the neighborhood; they hate each other because they are both writing a series centering on the first Queen Elizabeth's friend Bess of Hardwick. When Opal is run over by a car in the same place the little girl died, everyone thinks Adele is the killer but Gemma is going to get hypnotized to see if she can remember anything about the accident, a move that puts all the writers in mortal jeopardy.

PLEASE FEED THE CAT will appeal to animal lovers and amateur sleuth fans who like their mysteries without blood and gore. The arias of the pets are adorable and they steal the show from their humans. The tone of the story is upbeat as the humans act out even more than their pets do. Marian Babson, known for her frolicking stories, writes a work where all the clues are part of the story leaving it to readers to put the investigation together. This is an engaging and charming mystery.

Harriet Klausner