A Case of Cat and Mouse by Sofie Kelly

A Case of Cat and Mouse by Sofie Kelly ISBN-13: 9780440001164 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Berkley Released: September 1st 2020

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description from Goodreads:
Spring has come to charming Mayville Heights, and with it, some Hollywood glamour. The little town is abuzz because the reboot of a popular baking TV show is filming there. Librarian Kathleen Paulson is working as an advisor on historical facts for the show, local restaurants are providing catering for the camera crews, and Kathleen's faithful felines, Hercules and Owen, are hoping there is a cat treat challenge.

But then Kathleen finds one of the judges dead. She has solved many-a-murder with help from the supernaturally gifted Herc and Owen, and with the whole town on tenterhooks, the talented trio will have to have all paws on deck to chase down this killer.


My Review:
A Case of Cat and Mouse is a cozy mystery. This is the 12th 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. However, the author provided a lot of detail about events that happened in the previous books. These were not necessary to understand the story, and the first third of the book dragged a bit because of all these info dumps. The author also told all of the details of a coffee fiasco (which was comic relief) once when it happened and again when Kathleen was telling Marcus about it. It felt like the author was 45 pages short and so added a lot of filler to the front of the book. The pacing was fine after Kathleen started investigating the murder, though.

It's a clue-based mystery. The heroine is intelligent and knows how to ask questions without being pushy or accusing. She mainly helped uncover lies and sorted out alibis, which eliminated many people from the suspect list. She also spotted the critical clue, and it'd be difficult to correctly guess whodunit before that point. 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 but mostly they provided humor with their antics.

There was no sex. There was a few uses 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.