Lilian Jackson Braun published her first three books, “The Cat Who Could Read Backwards,” “The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern” and “The Cat Who Turned On and Off” between 1966 and 1968, but then didn’t write again until 1986, for reasons unknown. She was then picked up by the Berkeley Publishing Group and made a reappearance, to the great joy of her fans, continuing “The Cat who. . .” series, starring the intelligent Siamese Koko and his friend, Yum Yum, also a Siamese, but female. Their owner, James Macintosh Qwilleran, otherwise known as Qwill, is a writer for the local paper and also an amateur sleuth. No one would believe him if he told the whole story – most of the crimes are solved by Koko.
Pickax County, 400 miles north of anywhere, is the setting for these rural tales of community, neighborliness, and quite often, murder. When the weather is not freezing, it’s lush and green, perfectly suited to Qwill, who came up from Down Below (the locals’ name for anything south of Pickax) in search of a totally different life. This he found in Pickax, and spends his time dating pretty librarian Polly, riding around on his bicycle, and writing 1,000 word articles for his newspaper column, “The Qwill Pen.” He lives in a refurbished barn complete with a huge bookcase, and this bookcase is the tool Koko uses to communicate with those around him. With uncanny accuracy, he climbs up on the shelf and knocks off books that either have the same plot as the mystery Qwill is trying to solve, or in someway are connected to the case. This leaves Qwill wondering if Koko can read, or if it’s all coincidence? But it happens time and time again, leaving very little room for doubt: Koko may not be able to read, but he is smarter than your average cat.
While I have read many books from this series in the past, it’s been a few years since I picked one up. The other day I read “The Cat Who Sang for the Birds,” and was reminded of all the reasons why I like this series. Qwill is a gentleman and treats everyone around him with respect. He gets involved in these mysteries largely while trying to make sure that people are getting a fair shake. The language is generally clean and I have yet to find an objectionable scene. Plus, what can I say, I like the cats. It’s fun to see how the author uses the cats as “catalysts” to solve the crime, be it showing outright distaste for the guilty, knocking a book off the shelf that was written by a person with a similar name, or using powers of thought transferal to tell Qwill what they are thinking. My assignment to myself is to hunt down the “Cat” books I haven’t yet read and to read them. It would be a shame to miss a single one.
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