The Cats Came Back by Sofie Kelly

The Cats Came Back by Sofie Kelly ISBN-13: 9780399584596 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime Released: Sept. 4, 2018

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The charming Minnesota town of Mayville Heights is hosting a music festival, and the whole place is bustling with musicians and tourists. Librarian Kathleen Paulson is looking forward to taking in some fabulous performances--and her two cats, Owen and Hercules, are looking forward to having their pictures taken in some promotional photos for the town. But then the trio stumbles across a dead body by the river.

The victim is a friend--who also happens to be a look-alike of a popular cabaret singer set to perform at the festival. Who could have wanted to harm this innocent girl? Was it a case of mistaken identity? As accusations abound and suspicions swirl, Kathleen, Hercules and Owen will put their abilities--both mundane and magical--to the test, and lay down the paw.


My Review:
The Cats Came Back is a cozy mystery. This is the 10th book in the series. You don't need to read the previous books to understand this one, and this book didn't spoil the mysteries in the previous books.

The cats are intelligent and have cat abilities (disappearing and getting out of places) taken to a magical degree. Their actions drew attention to clues or allowed the heroine to question people more naturally, but mostly they provided humor with their antics.

It's a clue-based puzzle mystery. The heroine is intelligent and knows how to ask questions without being pushy or accusing. Whodunit seemed obvious to me right after a scene where the heroine thought she'd learned nothing. She later caught on to the clues provided at that time. She took a little longer at pinpointing whodunit because she assumed certain information was correct whereas I doubted it.

There was no sex. There was occasional use of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this fun mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.