Cat on the Scent Book

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by: Rita Mae Brown, Sneaky Pie Brown, Itoko Maeno

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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: Rating: - Mildly enjoyable, but not greatly memorable Although I'll still give it three stars for the simple reason that Rita Mae Brown writes with enjoyable style, I can't recommend CAT ON THE SCENT as highly some others in the "Mrs. Murphy" series. Brown's mystery novels have always been more about funny characters than plot, but this particular novel pretty much throws plot completely out the window. CAT ON THE SCENT finds Mary "Harry" Harristeen (the young postmistress of tiny Crozet, Virginia) and her friends (both human and animal) drawn into a series of mysterious deaths that may or may not have something to do with a proposed reservoir. As usual, the writing is bright and the characters (including the felines Mrs. Murphy and Pewter and canine Tee Tucker) are entertaining... but on this occasion Brown seems to be straining her concept of animal characters, the overall novel seems unfocused, and many readers will find the conclusion frustrating. Mildly enjoyable, but not greatly memorable. Rating: - Crozet's Billionaire Boys Club Civil War reenactments, small planes, shady land investments, and boys with expensive toys, plus the usual requisite dead bodies, are the focus of Cat On The Scent, the 7th Mrs. Murphy Mystery by Rita Mae Brown [and her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown]. Harry Haristeen, postmistress of Crozet, Virginia, and her amazing companion animals Mrs. Murphy, Pewter [the cats], and Tucker [the dog] are on the case as always. The novel starts off well enough, but loses its way towards the end. Reading the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries has always meant an extra measure of suspended disbelief [the animals talk to each other and always solve the mysteries before the humans do], but in this story the animals push the need to suspend disbelief over the edge with behavior that is way beyond what had been established for the animal characters in the previous six novels. The end is muddied in a way that makes me believe that the author never firmly decided whodunit and finally just ended the book. One of the novel's B-stories, involving a relative of Harry's and a dead baby buried in the "bone yard" of a farm, is very interesting and I would have liked to see that story expanded. I did enjoy the novel, but not as much as the earlier ones. This one rates about a 3.6 stars compared to the others. If you're into the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries, you should read this one for the continuity, but if you're looking to try one of the novels in the series, I'd recommend that you pick another one to start with. Rating: - The Marvellous Mrs. Murphy Does It Again The sixth "Mrs. Murphy Mystery," featuring Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen and her pets (Mrs. Murphy, the tiger cat; Tee Tucker, the corgi bitch; and Pewter, the fat gray cat who used to live in Market Shifflett's grocery), takes some interesting new tangents. There's a Civil War re-enactment, a haughty Britisher who gets shot (not fatally) in the very midst of the fray, a small plane hidden in an old stone barn, and a missing pilot; a dismaying discovery by the three animals in a pit full of discarded farm machinery, and the revelation it leads to; an appearance by the Reverend Herb Jones's cats, Elocution and Lucy Fur, who've been mentioned but never introduced before in the series; a cabal that may or may not be illegal but is certainly leading to some strange doings; and a murder that goes unsolved, even by the notoriously nosy Mrs. Murphy. The high point of the novel, though, has to be the astonishing scene in which Tucker and the cats, having discovered Harry's neighbor Blair Bainbridge lying in his Porsche freshly shot, contrive to literally drive the car home to their mistress so she can call for help. It sounds incredible, but as Brown has set it up (foreshadowing with a newspaper story about a dog ticketed for driving without a license), it just seems a believable outgrowth of a series in which animals talk to one another, read the mail and the newspaper, and help solve crimes while still acting plausibly like animals. A not-to-be- missed entry.

Cat on the Scent Book

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