This fun Bookshop Kitties mystery features Christy Bailey, and her lovely cats Milton and Pearl. We start with a wedding in Green Meadow, Indiana, in which even the cats are involved. MURDER, SHE MEOWED shows people getting emotional at the wedding, but not all with tears of happiness. Christy’s Aunt Betty then departs on her honeymoon with Wallace Wilkins, leaving Christy in charge of the bookstore, and everyone is pleased, until later that evening.

The local wedding caterer, Janie Miles, is assisted in clearing up by Christy and a fine young man called Micah Remington, who seems to like Christy. He’s an emergency room doctor. At the pastry shop, however, a man is lying dead on the floor. A blood-spattered rolling pin lies beside him. The police are called but there’s nothing that can be done for the man. Suspicion falls on Janie or her assistant Kiersten, because the man, who recently returned to town, is Janie’s ex-husband Tad Miles. Nobody was delighted to see him, but that’s not a motive for murder.

The bookstore, Words to Read By, is a friendly place, with new visitors, coach trippers and town regulars alike enjoying meeting the cats. Milton and Pearl are good-sized cats and not shy, which helps them sniff out clues, alert to prowlers and act protectively. They get taken for walks on leads and pushed in a stroller around town. What other people might do with a small dog, Christy does with her plush cats. 

The main street is all we get to see of the small town, as Christy lives near the bookshop and walks to stores for pastries, coffee, fruit and vegetables, and flowers. The locals all gossip and even the hospital staff turn out to share information readily with passing strangers. This makes investigating a death easy for Christy, but it also means that everyone knows she is asking questions. I found no great surprises, other than the number of good folks who have some medical condition – probably quite realistic, but notable in a story. Finding suspects and motives was enjoyable.

MURDER, SHE MEOWED by Ruth J. Hartman is the second in this cozy mystery series, and I may have to go read the first one to get more of the cats and their antics. Cat lovers can’t go wrong with the Bookshop Kitties.