Mystery of the Fat Cat

by Frank Bonham

Everything in Dogtown, including the Boys Club, was run down and beat up. The Health Department wanted to close the Club because it was full of rats and cockroaches. But that only meant that kids like Buddy Williams, Johnny Pastelito, Rich Smith, and Cool Hawkins would be out on the street again with no place to go. They didn't want trouble. They just wanted to raise money to save the old place. Once they started looking, though, things began to pop. Before long, the whole town was in on the search for a very rich and mysterious cat.

Genres: Mystery

160 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1960

About the author

Frank Bonham (February 25, 1914 – 1988) was an author of Westerns and young adult novels. Bonham wrote 48 novels, as well as TV scripts. Bonham was born in Los Angeles. He was a UCLA graduate. Bonham was known for his works for young adults written in the 1960s, with tough, realistic urban settings, including The Nitty Gritty and Durango Street, as well as for his westerns. Several of his works have been published posthumously, many of which were drawn from his pulp magazine stories, originally published between 1941 and 1952. Durango Street was an ALA Notable Book.

Reviews

[Andy]

One of the nice things about the Internet is that it lets me find books that I read as a kid, and long since forgot the names of. This is one of those books (I probably read it when I was 12 or 13 (it may have been a book assigned to my younger brother, which I borrowed)) and I wasn't even looking for it - I ran across a reference to it on tvtropes.org. Anyway, it's a short novel about a group of boys trying to survive summer in the city when the one legal and safe activity they can do, namely spending time at the run-down, but well-run, local boys club, is ruined by an infestation of rats. The author gives a sympathetic look at the lives of these boys, and includes a child who has autism, which is remarkable in a book written in 1968 (especially since the story is not about that child). I enjoyed revisiting the story.

[Chazzi]

Dogtown is a neighbourhood of a larger city, like Los Angeles. It is a rough area made up of small, poor houses, surrounded by hills that cut it off from the main city making it its own world. The world of Buddy, Ralphie, Little Pie, Cool and Rich; known as the Oak Street Boys.

The Oak Street Boys Club is where the local boys can swim, workout, play sports and hangout. But problems of rats, cockroaches, and deterioration of the structure itself keeps it constantly on the verge of being shut down. If this were to happen, the only place left for the boys to be is on the streets. Streets that have their own dangerous and bad elements.

Mr. Hannibal is the manager and jack of all trades in keeping the club open. When word is received that the building is to be condemned, Mr. Hannibal and the boys decide to send out another request for donations for money to repair the building and get rid of the vermin.

While going through the list, Ralphie is rattling off names and addresses. Ralphie is Buddy's younger brother who is autistic but has a fantastic memory; a memory that contains the complete list of Boys Club donors. The name of 'the Estate of Harriett Adkins' is mentioned, and brings up the subject of Buzzer. Buzzer is Harriett Adkins' cat and was the beneficiary of her half-million dollar estate when she died. The cat lives on the property with a live-in caretaker and a high priced vet on call. When Buzzer dies, the estate then goes to the Boys Club. The question is "is Buzzer still alive?" No one has seen the cat and he is quite old by now. This becomes the mystery in the story.

The estate is on top of one of the hills surrounding Dogtown, and is enclosed by high fencing and gates. The only know visitor is the vet. Otherwise no one sees or hears of the cat. The lengths and methods the boys go to to solve this mystery shows ingenuity, creativity and humours.

The action is good and I enjoyed the writing. The action keeps moving with progress and a few setbacks. There is humour and lessons to be learned.

[Karen GoatKeeper]

Harriet Atkins left her estate to care for her five cats. When they died, the money went to the Dogtown Boys Club.
The Boys Club is falling down, only open because the town doesn't want the boys out on the streets looking for amusement and trouble. The rats and cockroaches are honorary members.
When disaster strikes, Buddy, Johnny, Rich and Cool are sent on a mission to see if 28-year-old tomcat Buzzer is really still alive. That's when things really start happening in Dogtown.
This is an easy to read, fun, fast paced book with an unlikely hero.

[Cody Spurlock]

Mystery of the Fat Cat by Frank Bonham, is a great book that was enjoyable to read. The characters were each written well and it very rarely had a boring moment. The books story was easy to follow and was understandable at all times. The plot of the book was interesting and fit really well with the entire setting. Overall I would recommend Mystery of the Fat Cat to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.

[Benjamin Kahn]

I read every Frank Bonham books that the library had when I was a kid. I loved them. They were a little bit like S. E Hinton's book, but there was a little more humour and fun in them. I don't remember a lot of the plots now - just pieces here and there - but I remember enjoying them all greatly.

[Hope]

It was very confusing to me and it was not easy to understand.

[Liv]

Please never read this book. The only mystery about this book is why "mystery" is in its title. This was just a story about "boys being boys" and causing all kinds of mayhem, getting messed up with "gangs", and tresspassing. There were also very passive sexist remarks that were not appreciated. Granted this was written in the sixties for boys but we don't need that in todays day and age. There was also a passage in the book that really freaked me out (not in a good way). The main character we follow has a moment where he imidatly shuts down while talking with his father and rembers a time when his father was mad at him in the past and smacked him so hard he hit the wall behind him and was bleeding. Child abuse is awful and it was treated as "discipline". So please, spare yourselves the agony and do not read this.

[寿理 宮本]

This is one of the worst mysteries I've ever finished reading. (I'm sure I've started ones that were too terrible to finish but have blocked them from memory.) It's not as such bad writing, just... the mystery itself is trash.

In principle, it would actually be a reasonably good mystery: rich eccentric leaves her fortune to her cats, upon the death of which the local Boys Club will get the remaining estate. Catch is, the last living cat seems to be immortal, at ***28 YEARS OLD.***

The actual execution of the mystery... I don't know. A very lot of things rub me the wrong way about it, including the reason nobody has caught on to the suspiciousness of this cat's eternal youth. Also the twist of how nobody could tell the archival photo of the cat at a younger age was mirrored.

Good things:
- accurate depiction of the effects of poverty on children (and the fact that boredom increases crime, so closing the Boys Club has undesirable secondary effects)
- acknowledgement of casual racism and how it's often easier to just ignore it to keep the peace than speak up when the "affected" party isn't there (though nowadays, it's better to speak up ESPECIALLY when the affected party isn't there, which Buddy seems to start to realise)
- the black man whose property had been trespassed nevertheless looked extremely uncomfortable in the police station (never changes, huh)
- Dad's words of wisdom, paraphrased: "The shotgun trap may be illegal, but that won't matter if you get your fool head blown off by it."

Bad things:
- nobody in the book other than the ONE girl seems to like cats, not even when the rat problem is what finally shuts down the Boys Club for good (okay, that's a lie, the EXPLOSION is what shutters it for GOOD)
- frankly, the rat attack seemed ridiculous (even if hyperbole)
- villain had HOW many years to find a perfect lookalike and went with the easiest one to prove was a fake?
- repeated use of a slur for someone who possibly has autism but at the very least has a learning disability ("product of its time" doesn't make it any more palatable, regardless of period accuracy)
- (why did they even take Ralphie along, someone who cannot lie and will announce your guilt at the drop of a hat)

I guess it's an okay read if you're after a period piece. I just happen to have not enjoyed it as much as I had been hoping, after finding a familiar yet unread title after all this time.

[Amy Wang]

The book suspended me into my seat, while actions was everywhere