Book Review: A Cat With the Blues

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

A Cat With the Blues     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Lydia Adamson
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Cozy   Cats   Woman Main Character
Series: Alice Nestleton # 18
Signet, Dec 2000, $5.99, 208 pp.

Years ago, Alice Nestleton left her Minnesota home to come to the Big Apple in search of fame and fortune as an actress. Now forty-one, jobs are becoming fewer, not that any of them amounted to anything. To supplement her income, she offers her services as a cat sitter. Currently, she cares for Fancy, a Russian blue feline. Fancy has her apartment to herself because her owners are squabbling during an acrimonious divorce in which both claim the cat as theirs. Alice receives a generous fee for insuring Fancy receives fresh food, water, and litter, and that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Woburn abducts the feline. Alice drops off a check on behalf of Mrs. Woburn at the nearby bodega only to have an armed robber demand money while she is there.

The thug points his gun at Alice, but inadvertently shoots the shopkeeper. Alice believes she was set up by her client and quits her job. Not long afterward, someone kills the doorman in what appears to be a mugging gone ugly. Next Fancy is catnapped and the gallery where Mrs. Woburn was to have a showing burns to the ground. Alice has solved several homicides over the years and sees a link between these events. She begins her own brand of investigation.

Lydia Adamson writes a delectable funny mystery tale starring a likable and realistic heroine who accepts that she is never going to take the planet by storm. The felines that populate this amateur sleuth novel are near purrfect especially for cat lovers. A CAT WITH THE BLUES is must reading for amateur sleuth readers and feline fans who will delightfully conclude that Ms. Adamson is the real catwoman.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner