You never forget your first. Cats in mystery novels, that is. I met Clea Simon’s cat detective, Mr. Grey, in her Dulcie Schwartz series, SHADES OF GREY and was enchanted.
Every amateur sleuth needs a sidekick, and Dulcie Schwartz is fortunate to have Mr. Grey at her side. Mr. Grey is quick-witted, resourceful and endlessly devoted. He has finely tuned instincts and a nose for ferreting out the truth.
Oh yes, and he happens to be a cat.
Mr. Grey is more than a garden variety house cat; he’s the ghost of Dulcie’s beloved pet feline, and it quickly becomes apparent that he’s more of a spirit guide” than a woo-woo presence in the book.
Dulcie, still mourning the loss of her pet, feels an immediate affinity with him when he crosses her path. Is he really an incarnation of Mr. Grey? Could it be possible? He has “long silver fur and a face more Siamese than Persian, the slanted eyes giving him an intelligent and inquisitive look.”
And he’s not only a gorgeous feline, but a talkative one. When Dulcie walks right into a crime scene, he gently chides her, “Dulcie, please go back outside. Go outside and dial 911.”
Is it the spirit of Mr. Grey speaking to her? Dulcie wonders if her imagination is playing tricks on her–perhaps it’s a grief reaction or maybe the heat is getting to her. But the fact remains: his advice is eerily on target. “Please be careful, Dulcie,” he tells her. “Trust, like faith, can weave spells.”
Anyone who has ever lost a pet can certainly relate to the notion that our beloved furry friends are somehow still “with us.”
THE BLACK CAT STEPS ON A CRACK, in Kay Finch’s Bad Luck Cat Mystery, has everything a mystery lover could hope for–an engaging heroine, an intriguing plot, plenty of smart, sophisticated dialogue, and wonderful secondary characters.
I knew Kay Finch must be a bona fide cat lover by the time I finished the first chapter. Her description of Hitchcock’s personality was so on target, I was certain he must have been based on a real cat, perhaps a beloved cat from childhood. His intelligence, his natural curiosity and his deep bond with his human, Sabrina, make him the perfect feline sidekick for a mystery.
I asked Ms. Finch, “What’s your personal relationship with cats?”
She said, “I was born a cat lover, as evidenced by pictures taken on our Pennsylvania farm – of me taking my first toddling steps alongside cats and of me with my two brothers, posing with armloads of kittens. I spent many patient hours sitting in the hay loft until the wild kittens born in our barn finally allowed me to get close enough to play with and hold them.”
And it helped that her agent was a cat fancier. “My fictional cat, Hitchcock, was born after my agent and I had a lengthy brainstorming session about an idea for a Bad Luck Cat mystery series. She was excited about the series from the get-go, and I was over the moon when she sold it a few days after I sent her my proposal with three chapters.”
Here’s the set up. Sabrina Tate, a budding mystery writer, and Hitchcock met in the fictional town of Lavender, Texas, and became fast friends. Unlike many cat detectives, Hitchcock doesn’t have any magical powers. His behavior is driven purely by his personality, not any supernatural elements.
The series has a romantic element and Sabrina and Luke, the local game warden, have been dating. Hitchcock will continue to reveal his charming feline personality and be an important presence in Sabrina’s life.
I knew Familiar, the feline hero in Carolyn Haines Familiar series, was an extraordinary cat from the very first page. Familiar is tough, sarcastic, streetwise and clever. If you’re looking for a Hallmark cat who poses fetchingly and plays with balls of yarn, he’s not your guy.
In FEAR FAMILIAR, he bursts onto the page and rescues Sabrina, a human in distress, within the first few paragraphs. After escaping from a laboratory, he uses his charms to persuade Sabrina to take him home and this begins his career as a cat detective. Cats may only have nine lives, but Familiar’s adventures have been translated into 18 languages and thousands of copies of his books have been sold.
Here’s how Carolyn Haines explains the background of the series. “For most of my life, I’ve always had a black cat for a companion. I guess because some people consider them bad luck or whatever crazy notion, there are often a lot of stray black cats. Even as a child, I brought home stray creatures that needed love and care. Today, I have 12 cats, but only one of them is totally black. Her name is Karma.
“When I was writing Harlequin Intrigues, I came up with the idea for a black cat who had a point of view in the story. Normally, only the hero and heroine were allowed to have a point of view in the Intrigues, but I wrote FEAR FAMILIAR about a kitty who escaped from a research lab and helped his human saviors resolve a dark mystery. My editor at the time, Tahti Carter, suggested that I make Familiar a “series within the series.” I was thrilled. And so Familiar became a traveling cat (even time traveling in Bewitching Familiar). He traveled to Scotland and Ireland to solve mysteries, all with the aplomb of James Bond.
Cats seem to be the perfect companion for a sleuth, and black cats seem to have a special magic. But whatever color they are, cats are unique and individual. They rule the roost. I love all cats, but I have a special place in my heart for black kitties. They seem to have their own special magic.”
Mr. Grey, Hitchcock and Familiar, three cat detectives who will charm and intrigue you.
Mary Kennedy is a licensed psychologist and the author of the Talk Radio Mysteries and the Dream Club Mysteries. She’s written nearly fifty novels and has four million copies in print. Her first thirty-five books were young adult novels published by Scholastic nationwide and in several countries. She lives in the northeast with an eccentric cat. She’s tried unsuccessfully to psychoanalyze him but she remains optimistic.
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