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Cat Crimes
Showcasing the top names in mystery fiction today, the seventeen tales included in this unique collection of feline who-dun-its will make anyone's fur stand on end!
10 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 1991
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258 people want to read
About the author
Martin H. Greenberg
909 books163 followersMartin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.
For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.
For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
March 17, 2022
An eclectic group of short crime stories all involving cats-some more than others. Quality varies, so only a 3-star rating. I like cats and I like mysteries so of course I liked this book. The short stories are clever and quite different from each other; sometimes the cat was the criminal, sometimes the victim, sometimes taking vengeance against the criminal. A few were a little too violent though, so not all are appropriate for reading to children (or sensitive adults). And some had only a tangential relationship to cats. But I particularly liked the story told from the cat's POV. Here’s a small spoiler alert: there were stories that had felines with human names, and vice versa, so it was easy to mix up whether the author was referring to a cat or a person—and in some cases this was deliberate, which I only realized in hindsight.
Apparently “Cat Crimes” is only the first of several volumes of stories collected by Martin Greenberg. The others are: Cat Crimes 2 (June 1992), Cat Crimes 3 (Dec 1992), Cat Crimes Takes a Vacation (1995) and Cat Crimes for the Holidays (Nov 1997)
Apparently “Cat Crimes” is only the first of several volumes of stories collected by Martin Greenberg. The others are: Cat Crimes 2 (June 1992), Cat Crimes 3 (Dec 1992), Cat Crimes Takes a Vacation (1995) and Cat Crimes for the Holidays (Nov 1997)
May 4, 2020
I must be out of my mind, but I saw my man Greenberg on the cover and had to give it a shot (despite my total disappointment with his feline fiction compilation
Catfantastic vol.1
). I’ve got the other two in the series on my to-read shelf so I’ll probably be reviewing all three if this one is decent.
We start off with Ginger’s Waterloo by Peter Lovesey, which I’m very sorry to say didn’t interest me in the least. An obnoxious man attaches himself to a man too polite to tell him to get lost during their daily subway ride to work, and an attempt to shake him off when the polite man’s boss joins him on the daily commute leads to a murder. I couldn’t pay attention to it at all. The obnoxious man’s dialogue didn’t make sense when paired with the punchline, and said punchline was weak. You expected to hear a drum sting at the last line (ba dum tsh), and it wasn’t funny. It just made the obnoxious character look like an even bigger fool. You don’t stuff a living thing in a sack without incapacitating it first, idiot, of course you had a hard time. It’s a shame this was the compilation’s best foot forward.
In Bedeviled: A “Nameless Detective” Story by Bill Pronzini, a detective is hired to discover the identity of the vandals terrorizing his client’s neighbor. The neighbor is elderly and is convinced she’s being harassed by the ghost of her late husband, but the client suspects a more substantial pest. This story was pretty decent and easy to get through, and my hopes for the book have been slightly raised. It was a generic detective story that kept me intrigued right through to the end.
A man and his new bride take in A Weekend at Lookout Lodge. But the groom is experiencing horrible luck and eventually is forced to face the consequences for the fate of his previous wife. Joan E. Hess’s short story is almost another faux ghost story. The cat, Princess, is run off by her late owner’s husband immediately after the accidental death, but it turns out she’s not only a tenacious creature but a vindictive one as well. This one was decent, but I would have preferred to see it stretched out into a novella at least. As enjoyable as the groom’s torture was, there was very little of it and his reaction to thinking he sees Princess in the bushes when he first arrives is dramatic and we don’t really get a reason as to why. And if he didn't want people to look at him funny for getting rid of his late wife's prized puss immediately after her tragic death, why did he abandon it in an area where the locals would have been guaranteed to recognize it? And why on earth would he even have brought his new wife to the scene of his late wife’s death for their honeymoon? The set-up raises too many questions for me to enjoy it completely.
Mrs. Olivia Barchester invites a guest to sit down for Tea and 'Biscuit in this Jon L. Breen story of poisonous aspirations. A barn cat (the pet of a racehorse cared for by Olivia's guest) has been poisoned, and together with Olivia's nephew the trio puzzle out the culprit. This one was the first I found to be thoroughly enjoyable. The cat is the center of the issue, but the mystery revolves around racehorses and the dialogue is stuffed with references to racing and stables and the like. I wasn't expecting it, and Olivia's voice was competent and animated and thoroughly enjoyable to listen to. I’m going to be checking for more Breen stories for sure, and this short story may have just saved my opinion of this collection.
Horatio Ruminates by Dorothy B. Hughes started out strong, and I was quite enjoying it up to the ending. Horatio’s home is invaded by his owner’s moocher nephew, and despite her desire to throw him out she’s too soft-hearted to force the matter. Upset at his owner’s distress, Horatio decides to take matters into his own paws. The language was fantastic, the situation was rife with conflict, looking at it all through the cat’s eyes worked well, and even his harping on about jellicle cats was amusing (maybe only because CATS was my first musical and I grew up binge watching the VHS). But it got me primed for an equally impressive climax and when it finally happened it was pretty tame. I still really enjoyed it, but it’s another story that maybe could have benefited from being longer.
Scat by Barbara Paul is about a singer caught up in a murder investigation after a co-worker is killed the day following them insulting a mobster regular. The cat in the story is Hugo, a rescued lab test subject with a violent aversion to people and who viciously attacks anyone who so much as looks at him. The murder story is cute and naturally Hugo’s violence toward being touched ends up saving the day, but it was Hugo’s and his owner's interactions with each other that charmed me in this one. Hugo is 100% not okay. He never should have been rehomed, and any sensible shelter would have put him down. Sadly, he was rescued by PETA (Which makes no sense, actually. PETA has a 75% kill rate and are known for putting down perfectly healthy animals and spending more time drawing attention to themselves than doing rescue work. They would have put down Hugo immediately and milked it for all the media attention it was worth). So poor, traumatized Hugo is forced to readjust to society with an owner who’s trying to be patient but is getting really sick of the constant unprovoked attacks, and he’s not ‘fixed’ by the end of the story.
A theatre owner is Blindsided by the murder of an old girlfriend he was just starting to reconnect with, but it might be a dead cat who reveals the killer. William J. Reynolds’ story does something clever with the clue the cat leaves behind, but I didn’t care for the laid-back tone of the piece. It takes place in a farming town a few steps from being a ghost town, and you get a ‘rocking on the front porch chewing tobacco’ vibe, which works fine for this murder but slows the story down. It nailed the atmosphere, though.
The Last Temptation of Tony the C. is an odd one of a drugged up painter who touches a Bosch in a gallery and is sent of one hell of a nasty trip. Good lord, one thing you don’t want to see when you’re high is a Bosch. Christopher Fahy drops his mooching hero into a hellscape right out of The Garden of Earthly Delights with a twist at the end that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but manages to squeeze in the book’s cat theme at the last moment. The bad trip was pretty fun to read, as was the hero’s whining about his drugged up adventure across Europe, but it didn’t leave much of an impression.
Buster is a good one by Bill Crider. A dotty old cat lady calls the police after her precious Buster is killed, and points the finger at a neighbor who’s been shooting at her little darlings. But the neighbor’s reasoning is sound, if misguided (he bought a BB gun to defend his own cat from attacks by hers, instead of just calling the SPCA on her obvious hoarding problem), and the officer gets an inkling that the murderer was a little closer to home. Buster was a good mystery with one big problem. Excluding the officer and the complainant, there were only two characters and we have little reason to suspect the neighbor of the crime. The mystery becomes a ‘why’ rather than a ‘who’ (even the ‘how’ is obvious early on) but the story keep trying to push the 'who' as the big question, so you're sitting there waiting for the detective to catch up to the reader. But despite that it was still enjoyable overall.
Finally, one I loved! Catnap by David H. Everson is a fast-paced detective story of a hapless P.I. stuck returning a kidnapped cat to its owner. Again, and again, and again. Probably the best part of this charade is that none of it is the poor cat’s fault. She’s just a sour-tempered kitty with some bad habits. It’s funny, cute, and you feel bad for the kitty and the poor detective.
A serial killer makes sure to give each of his victims one Last Kiss once he’s done, but he has a little trouble getting rid of a witness to murder no. 10. Another one I loved, Douglas Borton’s story starts a little gruesome (The first high fluting note of a scream escaped his lips, and then Gray caught him in the throat with the hammer's claw and tore his larynx out. He beat the man again and again, crunching bone, laughing, till finally Allen lay still, his near-naked body spangled in red, a bloody harlequin. [p.183]) but becomes a comedy of misfortune. Adding to the humor is that the cat, Angel (an avenging one in this case), is a Siamese, so the story is full of their signature acrobatics and impossible escapes.
P.I. Saxon is hired by an aging Hollywood costumer to hunt down her missing jeweled pin in Little Cat Feet by Les Roberts. And if the detective can find the boytoy who took it when he left her, all the better. It's another detective story and another great read. Saxon was a blast to follow around 'Sunset Boulevard' Hollywood and there was a light noir sound to the prose. The solution was a surprise, too.
Mandy is by no means a Finicky woman. She tries her best to take care of the household after her husband leaves her, but some things have to be left by the wayside. Digging the small grave in the backyard and stealing glances back at her whimpering three-year-old and the motionless body of her beloved cat, she considers the choices she’s made and their results. This short story by John Lutz blew me away. The pacing was perfect and the payoff had the right amount of punch to it, and it made me go back and reread the story again with fresh eyes. It’s an oft-used twist, but Lutz wrote it so it still sneaks up on you.
It's a battle of wills in J. A. Jance's The Duel. A woman is convinced her husband is trying to murder her, and decides she can't just sit pretty and wait for death. An amusing one, but this plot was used and reused so many times in 100 Malicious Little Mysteries that I got very little enjoyment out of it.
A woman is terrified for her cat's safety when she returns home to find him dreadfully ill. Archimedes and the Doughnuts by Gene DeWeese and Barbara Paul uses the same plot as Buster but to much better effect, and we get to see what happens after the case is solved.
A homeless man dies in The Lower Wacker Hilton but a slip of the tongue sets the officer on the culprit. Barbara D’Amato's story has nothing going against it, but it also has nothing going for it. The solution was abrupt and the characters had no personality. It was decent, but there are much better stories in this collection.
A couple are denied the right to take home their kitty's corpse after it's run over, because the tire imprints might crack a murder case. But these loving owners are determined to give their beloved pet A Proper Burial one way or another. I loved this pair! Barbara Collins brought them to life, and I am so proud of them for a job well done. Yes, they technically , but the asshole had it coming.
THE VERDICT?
Enough decent short stories that it's worth checking the book out of the library, but it's not worth buying.
(I'm still trying to hammer out a formula for coming up with the stars for a compilation, so this was more of a guess than a science)
We start off with Ginger’s Waterloo by Peter Lovesey, which I’m very sorry to say didn’t interest me in the least. An obnoxious man attaches himself to a man too polite to tell him to get lost during their daily subway ride to work, and an attempt to shake him off when the polite man’s boss joins him on the daily commute leads to a murder. I couldn’t pay attention to it at all. The obnoxious man’s dialogue didn’t make sense when paired with the punchline, and said punchline was weak. You expected to hear a drum sting at the last line (ba dum tsh), and it wasn’t funny. It just made the obnoxious character look like an even bigger fool. You don’t stuff a living thing in a sack without incapacitating it first, idiot, of course you had a hard time. It’s a shame this was the compilation’s best foot forward.
In Bedeviled: A “Nameless Detective” Story by Bill Pronzini, a detective is hired to discover the identity of the vandals terrorizing his client’s neighbor. The neighbor is elderly and is convinced she’s being harassed by the ghost of her late husband, but the client suspects a more substantial pest. This story was pretty decent and easy to get through, and my hopes for the book have been slightly raised. It was a generic detective story that kept me intrigued right through to the end.
A man and his new bride take in A Weekend at Lookout Lodge. But the groom is experiencing horrible luck and eventually is forced to face the consequences for the fate of his previous wife. Joan E. Hess’s short story is almost another faux ghost story. The cat, Princess, is run off by her late owner’s husband immediately after the accidental death, but it turns out she’s not only a tenacious creature but a vindictive one as well. This one was decent, but I would have preferred to see it stretched out into a novella at least. As enjoyable as the groom’s torture was, there was very little of it and his reaction to thinking he sees Princess in the bushes when he first arrives is dramatic and we don’t really get a reason as to why. And if he didn't want people to look at him funny for getting rid of his late wife's prized puss immediately after her tragic death, why did he abandon it in an area where the locals would have been guaranteed to recognize it? And why on earth would he even have brought his new wife to the scene of his late wife’s death for their honeymoon? The set-up raises too many questions for me to enjoy it completely.
Mrs. Olivia Barchester invites a guest to sit down for Tea and 'Biscuit in this Jon L. Breen story of poisonous aspirations. A barn cat (the pet of a racehorse cared for by Olivia's guest) has been poisoned, and together with Olivia's nephew the trio puzzle out the culprit. This one was the first I found to be thoroughly enjoyable. The cat is the center of the issue, but the mystery revolves around racehorses and the dialogue is stuffed with references to racing and stables and the like. I wasn't expecting it, and Olivia's voice was competent and animated and thoroughly enjoyable to listen to. I’m going to be checking for more Breen stories for sure, and this short story may have just saved my opinion of this collection.
Horatio Ruminates by Dorothy B. Hughes started out strong, and I was quite enjoying it up to the ending. Horatio’s home is invaded by his owner’s moocher nephew, and despite her desire to throw him out she’s too soft-hearted to force the matter. Upset at his owner’s distress, Horatio decides to take matters into his own paws. The language was fantastic, the situation was rife with conflict, looking at it all through the cat’s eyes worked well, and even his harping on about jellicle cats was amusing (maybe only because CATS was my first musical and I grew up binge watching the VHS). But it got me primed for an equally impressive climax and when it finally happened it was pretty tame. I still really enjoyed it, but it’s another story that maybe could have benefited from being longer.
Scat by Barbara Paul is about a singer caught up in a murder investigation after a co-worker is killed the day following them insulting a mobster regular. The cat in the story is Hugo, a rescued lab test subject with a violent aversion to people and who viciously attacks anyone who so much as looks at him. The murder story is cute and naturally Hugo’s violence toward being touched ends up saving the day, but it was Hugo’s and his owner's interactions with each other that charmed me in this one. Hugo is 100% not okay. He never should have been rehomed, and any sensible shelter would have put him down. Sadly, he was rescued by PETA (Which makes no sense, actually. PETA has a 75% kill rate and are known for putting down perfectly healthy animals and spending more time drawing attention to themselves than doing rescue work. They would have put down Hugo immediately and milked it for all the media attention it was worth). So poor, traumatized Hugo is forced to readjust to society with an owner who’s trying to be patient but is getting really sick of the constant unprovoked attacks, and he’s not ‘fixed’ by the end of the story.
A theatre owner is Blindsided by the murder of an old girlfriend he was just starting to reconnect with, but it might be a dead cat who reveals the killer. William J. Reynolds’ story does something clever with the clue the cat leaves behind, but I didn’t care for the laid-back tone of the piece. It takes place in a farming town a few steps from being a ghost town, and you get a ‘rocking on the front porch chewing tobacco’ vibe, which works fine for this murder but slows the story down. It nailed the atmosphere, though.
The Last Temptation of Tony the C. is an odd one of a drugged up painter who touches a Bosch in a gallery and is sent of one hell of a nasty trip. Good lord, one thing you don’t want to see when you’re high is a Bosch. Christopher Fahy drops his mooching hero into a hellscape right out of The Garden of Earthly Delights with a twist at the end that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but manages to squeeze in the book’s cat theme at the last moment. The bad trip was pretty fun to read, as was the hero’s whining about his drugged up adventure across Europe, but it didn’t leave much of an impression.
Buster is a good one by Bill Crider. A dotty old cat lady calls the police after her precious Buster is killed, and points the finger at a neighbor who’s been shooting at her little darlings. But the neighbor’s reasoning is sound, if misguided (he bought a BB gun to defend his own cat from attacks by hers, instead of just calling the SPCA on her obvious hoarding problem), and the officer gets an inkling that the murderer was a little closer to home. Buster was a good mystery with one big problem. Excluding the officer and the complainant, there were only two characters and we have little reason to suspect the neighbor of the crime. The mystery becomes a ‘why’ rather than a ‘who’ (even the ‘how’ is obvious early on) but the story keep trying to push the 'who' as the big question, so you're sitting there waiting for the detective to catch up to the reader. But despite that it was still enjoyable overall.
Finally, one I loved! Catnap by David H. Everson is a fast-paced detective story of a hapless P.I. stuck returning a kidnapped cat to its owner. Again, and again, and again. Probably the best part of this charade is that none of it is the poor cat’s fault. She’s just a sour-tempered kitty with some bad habits. It’s funny, cute, and you feel bad for the kitty and the poor detective.
A serial killer makes sure to give each of his victims one Last Kiss once he’s done, but he has a little trouble getting rid of a witness to murder no. 10. Another one I loved, Douglas Borton’s story starts a little gruesome (The first high fluting note of a scream escaped his lips, and then Gray caught him in the throat with the hammer's claw and tore his larynx out. He beat the man again and again, crunching bone, laughing, till finally Allen lay still, his near-naked body spangled in red, a bloody harlequin. [p.183]) but becomes a comedy of misfortune. Adding to the humor is that the cat, Angel (an avenging one in this case), is a Siamese, so the story is full of their signature acrobatics and impossible escapes.
P.I. Saxon is hired by an aging Hollywood costumer to hunt down her missing jeweled pin in Little Cat Feet by Les Roberts. And if the detective can find the boytoy who took it when he left her, all the better. It's another detective story and another great read. Saxon was a blast to follow around 'Sunset Boulevard' Hollywood and there was a light noir sound to the prose. The solution was a surprise, too.
Mandy is by no means a Finicky woman. She tries her best to take care of the household after her husband leaves her, but some things have to be left by the wayside. Digging the small grave in the backyard and stealing glances back at her whimpering three-year-old and the motionless body of her beloved cat, she considers the choices she’s made and their results. This short story by John Lutz blew me away. The pacing was perfect and the payoff had the right amount of punch to it, and it made me go back and reread the story again with fresh eyes. It’s an oft-used twist, but Lutz wrote it so it still sneaks up on you.
It's a battle of wills in J. A. Jance's The Duel. A woman is convinced her husband is trying to murder her, and decides she can't just sit pretty and wait for death. An amusing one, but this plot was used and reused so many times in 100 Malicious Little Mysteries that I got very little enjoyment out of it.
A woman is terrified for her cat's safety when she returns home to find him dreadfully ill. Archimedes and the Doughnuts by Gene DeWeese and Barbara Paul uses the same plot as Buster but to much better effect, and we get to see what happens after the case is solved.
A homeless man dies in The Lower Wacker Hilton but a slip of the tongue sets the officer on the culprit. Barbara D’Amato's story has nothing going against it, but it also has nothing going for it. The solution was abrupt and the characters had no personality. It was decent, but there are much better stories in this collection.
A couple are denied the right to take home their kitty's corpse after it's run over, because the tire imprints might crack a murder case. But these loving owners are determined to give their beloved pet A Proper Burial one way or another. I loved this pair! Barbara Collins brought them to life, and I am so proud of them for a job well done. Yes, they technically , but the asshole had it coming.
THE VERDICT?
Enough decent short stories that it's worth checking the book out of the library, but it's not worth buying.
(I'm still trying to hammer out a formula for coming up with the stars for a compilation, so this was more of a guess than a science)
July 27, 2020
I couldn’t get through this book. The stories were pretty boring, except for a very select few. They all feature at least one cat, which is fun, but some of the stories were so gosh darn annoying and weird that I had to stop this torture. If you like stories like this, go ahead and read this book, but if you don’t then I wouldn’t suggest it.
May 18, 2010
5/17/10: Yep, this was a delicious read! Now I have to find Cat Crimes II.
Though, apparently when you ask writers to make a story around cats, the most popular tropes involve poisoning and mistaken identity (b/w a cat and one of the human characters). Still, that didn't stop my enjoying each and every story. My favorites were probably some of the darkest ones: "Finicky" by John Lutz and "Last Kiss" by Douglas Borton. (But there were so many that I really liked, it's really too hard to choose.)
5/16/10: Three stories in and I am in LOVE with this book!
Though, apparently when you ask writers to make a story around cats, the most popular tropes involve poisoning and mistaken identity (b/w a cat and one of the human characters). Still, that didn't stop my enjoying each and every story. My favorites were probably some of the darkest ones: "Finicky" by John Lutz and "Last Kiss" by Douglas Borton. (But there were so many that I really liked, it's really too hard to choose.)
5/16/10: Three stories in and I am in LOVE with this book!
January 21, 2024
This small paperback was a cozy way to pass some time. As I always do when reading things with multiple authors, I'll say a little something about each story individually.
Ginger's Waterloo
That twist packed a punch, I did not see it coming at all! I even read back through the story to see how the author had misdirected so well.
Bedeviled: A "Nameless Detective" Story
This particular case didn't keep my attention but I liked the character enough to look into the "Nameless Detective" series.
A Weekend at Lookout Lodge
It was fine. I wished it had leaned more into the "haunting" aspects throughout the story.
Tea and 'Biscuit
Very short, even for a short story. There wasn't an ability to "play along" because the reasoning/clues weren't given until after they'd already solved the case and announced the culprit.
Horatio Ruminates
It wasn't a mystery but the author did a great job of capturing a cat's haughty nature.
Scat
Fairly predictable but an unique job. The culprit but unbelievably careless at the end but it was needed to move the story along.
Blindsided
The ending was hokey but the bait-and-switch in the middle of the story was amazing. I didn't see it coming at all.
The Last Temptation of Tony the C.
I thought the connection to cats was very thin until the ending which I did not anticipate. I still didn't really like the story though.
Buster
I had the method of death correct but the motive wrong.
Catnap
I didn't know what was going to happen but it was a lot of hoopla for a random ending. It wasn't a mystery.
Last Kiss
I was bothered more by the violence to the animal than the violence to the human which usually seems to be the case with me.
Little Cat Feet
Anticlimactic ending. I know it's a short story so things have to be wrapped up but to go through an entire list of suspects only to have the murderer basically break down and admit it after one question ends the story with a whimper, not a bang.
Finicky
Very short and creepy.
The Duel
The fact that she died as well makes absolutely no sense...after all that work put into thwarting his poisoning efforts she absentmindedly forgets and eats the food?
Archimedes and the Doughnuts
That was a solid story from start to finish with just enough personality to jazz it up without extra details.
The title and the inclusion in this book told me from the very beginning where it was going.
The Lower Wacker Hilton
Unique story and setting but there was so much effort to make the characters sound like wise-guys with all the extra words and interruptions that it was difficult for me to sift through and find the actual important stuff.
A Proper Burial
I understood the grief from the couple who had replaced children with their cat. Surprising ending.
Find all my reviews at: https://readingatrandom.blogspot.com
Ginger's Waterloo
That twist packed a punch, I did not see it coming at all! I even read back through the story to see how the author had misdirected so well.
Bedeviled: A "Nameless Detective" Story
This particular case didn't keep my attention but I liked the character enough to look into the "Nameless Detective" series.
A Weekend at Lookout Lodge
It was fine. I wished it had leaned more into the "haunting" aspects throughout the story.
Tea and 'Biscuit
Very short, even for a short story. There wasn't an ability to "play along" because the reasoning/clues weren't given until after they'd already solved the case and announced the culprit.
Horatio Ruminates
It wasn't a mystery but the author did a great job of capturing a cat's haughty nature.
Scat
Fairly predictable but an unique job. The culprit but unbelievably careless at the end but it was needed to move the story along.
Blindsided
The ending was hokey but the bait-and-switch in the middle of the story was amazing. I didn't see it coming at all.
The Last Temptation of Tony the C.
I thought the connection to cats was very thin until the ending which I did not anticipate. I still didn't really like the story though.
Buster
I had the method of death correct but the motive wrong.
Catnap
I didn't know what was going to happen but it was a lot of hoopla for a random ending. It wasn't a mystery.
Last Kiss
I was bothered more by the violence to the animal than the violence to the human which usually seems to be the case with me.
Little Cat Feet
Anticlimactic ending. I know it's a short story so things have to be wrapped up but to go through an entire list of suspects only to have the murderer basically break down and admit it after one question ends the story with a whimper, not a bang.
Finicky
Very short and creepy.
The Duel
The fact that she died as well makes absolutely no sense...after all that work put into thwarting his poisoning efforts she absentmindedly forgets and eats the food?
Archimedes and the Doughnuts
That was a solid story from start to finish with just enough personality to jazz it up without extra details.
The title and the inclusion in this book told me from the very beginning where it was going.
The Lower Wacker Hilton
Unique story and setting but there was so much effort to make the characters sound like wise-guys with all the extra words and interruptions that it was difficult for me to sift through and find the actual important stuff.
A Proper Burial
I understood the grief from the couple who had replaced children with their cat. Surprising ending.
Find all my reviews at: https://readingatrandom.blogspot.com
February 1, 2024
Each element of this collection of short crime/mystery stories contains a reference to a cat. In all cases, the presence of the cat is essential to the proper rendering of the story, but there is a significant variance in the level of relevance. In some, the resolution of the crime is based on a significant action by a cat, such as when there are scratches from the cat of the murder victim on a potential perpetrator of the murder. In another, a suffocation of a homeless man is incorrectly blamed on a cat laying on his face.
One of the most unusual in the collection is where a convenience store clerk is murdered and the killer drives away in a truck. During the getaway, the driver deliberately drives over the beloved cat of an old couple. The cat is kept as evidence by the detectives, for there are clear tire tracks on the squashed cat. Quite logical clue when you think about it. The old couple are very saddened when their beloved cat is kept in a freezer as evidence and plot a way to recover the remains.
One of the most interesting stories is “Last Kiss,” by Douglas Borton. A serial killer breaks into a house and kills the male occupant. There is a cat in the house and the story then becomes a duel between the murderer and the cat. Not wanting any “witnesses,” the killer decides to also kill the cat. The duel is amusing, and the ending is very appropriate for a cat victorious over a human determined to kill it.
There is a wide variety in the tenseness of the stories in this collection, yet all are worth reading as you sometimes ponder in the beginning what role the cat will play in the resolution.
One of the most unusual in the collection is where a convenience store clerk is murdered and the killer drives away in a truck. During the getaway, the driver deliberately drives over the beloved cat of an old couple. The cat is kept as evidence by the detectives, for there are clear tire tracks on the squashed cat. Quite logical clue when you think about it. The old couple are very saddened when their beloved cat is kept in a freezer as evidence and plot a way to recover the remains.
One of the most interesting stories is “Last Kiss,” by Douglas Borton. A serial killer breaks into a house and kills the male occupant. There is a cat in the house and the story then becomes a duel between the murderer and the cat. Not wanting any “witnesses,” the killer decides to also kill the cat. The duel is amusing, and the ending is very appropriate for a cat victorious over a human determined to kill it.
There is a wide variety in the tenseness of the stories in this collection, yet all are worth reading as you sometimes ponder in the beginning what role the cat will play in the resolution.
Read
January 5, 2026A lot of the stories were much more intense than I was expecting with details of violence, and due to the age, there are some non-PC elements to some of the stories, but overall an interesting mix of short mystery stories. Some of them I would have liked to read a longer version so that the story had more time to develop, some of them I was glad when they were over :/ two of the stories are basically the same plot.
August 29, 2019
The mysteries were okay but they weren’t really about cats. It kind of felt like the authors took an extra story they had lying around and added a cat into it so there was a cat in the story but save for a few books it never felt like the cat was really an important part or a central figure. I didn’t enjoy it.
April 26, 2023
An absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious read. Currently reading the second book. However, I thought there would be more cats committing crimes, hence the 4 star. Not what I was expecting but a satisfactory read nonetheless
January 13, 2021
Well edited, short and sweet. Some very good pieces and some so so but all in all amusing and clever.
February 19, 2021
There were some cute and funny stories and some that were just way out there lol
December 22, 2021
I enjoyed a handful of stories from this book. It was a fast read.
March 7, 2022
Short stories for cat lovers - and I am one. ❤️
April 26, 2022
Read as a teenager
December 31, 2017
Quelques très bonnes nouvelles dans cette anthologie, mais malheureusement, le fait que toutes les nouvelles soient du même genre tend à gâcher la surprise du mystère et du rebondissement : après 3 histoires apparemment sympathiques qui tournent subitement au drame, on n'est plus vraiment surpris quand la quatrième tourne mal elle aussi...
May 27, 2011
Like any anthology, it's a mixed bunch. "Blindsided", "Finicky", "Scat" and "Ginger's Waterloo" were the strongest of the bunch; "A Proper Burial" by far, the weakest and generally made me cringe and wonder how such dreck ever got published. Everything else varies in-between and usually isn't incredibly groundbreaking, but enjoyable enough.
The biggest problem I had with most of this anthology is that most of them didn't seem developed enough, which makes me think that the mystery genre is something that's better told in novels than short stories. Mostly because mysteries need a nice balance. There needs to be enough characters to make you wonder, but no so many that upon the reveal you go "Who?" (I'm looking at you, Mary Higgins Clark.)
This is for the traditional whodunnits, at least. I found 'the unreliable narrator is actually the killer' type of stories to be brutal and succinct in this form.
The biggest problem I had with most of this anthology is that most of them didn't seem developed enough, which makes me think that the mystery genre is something that's better told in novels than short stories. Mostly because mysteries need a nice balance. There needs to be enough characters to make you wonder, but no so many that upon the reveal you go "Who?" (I'm looking at you, Mary Higgins Clark.)
This is for the traditional whodunnits, at least. I found 'the unreliable narrator is actually the killer' type of stories to be brutal and succinct in this form.
March 21, 2015
Lovesey, Peter - Ginger's Waterloo ***
Pronzini, Bil - Nameless Detective 0 Bedeviled ***
Hess, Joan E - A Weekend at Lookout Lodge ***
Breen, Jon L - Tea and 'Biscuit ***
Dorothy B Hughes, Horatio Ruminates **
Paul,Barbara - Scat ***
Reynolds, William J - Blindsided ***
Fahy, Christopher - the Last Temptation of Tony the C ***
Crider, Bill - Buster ***
Everson, David H - Catnap ***
Borton, Douglas - Last Kiss ***
Roberts, Les - Little Cat Feet ****
Lutz, John - Finicky ***
Lance, JA - the Duel ***
DeWeese, Gene - Archimedes and the Doughnuts ****
d'Amato, Barbara - the Lower Wacker Hilton ****
Collins, Barbara - A Proper Burial ****
Pronzini, Bil - Nameless Detective 0 Bedeviled ***
Hess, Joan E - A Weekend at Lookout Lodge ***
Breen, Jon L - Tea and 'Biscuit ***
Dorothy B Hughes, Horatio Ruminates **
Paul,Barbara - Scat ***
Reynolds, William J - Blindsided ***
Fahy, Christopher - the Last Temptation of Tony the C ***
Crider, Bill - Buster ***
Everson, David H - Catnap ***
Borton, Douglas - Last Kiss ***
Roberts, Les - Little Cat Feet ****
Lutz, John - Finicky ***
Lance, JA - the Duel ***
DeWeese, Gene - Archimedes and the Doughnuts ****
d'Amato, Barbara - the Lower Wacker Hilton ****
Collins, Barbara - A Proper Burial ****
December 26, 2007
When I read the first story in this book, I wondered why the editors hadn't made it the last story, in a sort-of "save the best for last" thought. I couldn't imagine the rest of the stories being as good as that one. I was wrong! This is a collection of seventeen short stories by various authors, some of them quite famous (Peter Lovesey, J.A. Jance, etc.), and some I'd never heard of. All wonderful and all having crimes and having at least one cat appear.
The only negative is that having this title, it kind of spoiled the surprise for the readers some of the authors intended. But that's how good the writing is, I was able to get beyond that and enjoyed the stories.
The only negative is that having this title, it kind of spoiled the surprise for the readers some of the authors intended. But that's how good the writing is, I was able to get beyond that and enjoyed the stories.
March 31, 2010
Enjoyable, but spotty. In a few cases, a crime occurs in ways that don't quite add up, based on things that the author has told the reader. Overall, though, the enough of the stories are good enough to make the collection worth a read for anyone who knows cats and who likes a good mystery.
August 2, 2010
"Like footsteps in an empty alley, or screams in the dead of night, cats and mystery fit purr-fectly together . . ." says the book jacket and I agree! I love cats and mystery/suspense and these short stories weave them together beautifully.
July 19, 2012
Blehhhhh. The first few stories were entertaining but my attention was really flagging by the last handful. There was one story near the end that was downright disturbing. I think in future I will stick to the classics with these mystery collections - Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie, etc.
February 18, 2008
A bunch of fun mystery short stories about cats.
Read
April 14, 2008Anthology,Mystery
October 3, 2010
Loaned to me by my neighbor Mary - another cat lover!
Katrin
There were some cute little stories, but this is definitely a book for cat fanciers!
K.
Katrin
There were some cute little stories, but this is definitely a book for cat fanciers!
K.
May 4, 2011
Fun selection of cat themed mysteries.
May 29, 2011
Mixed bag of stories - some are really good - others just ok. But enjoying the catitude!
January 5, 2012
Great fun. Lots of twists, variety. A collection of short-story mysteries with cats.
May 31, 2013
This book I have to say was really weird. The stories are twisted and surprising but they are very interesting. I have to wonder how Greenberg came up with them all.
August 21, 2016
One of the better anthologies I've read lately. Not a bad story in there. ^_^
August 28, 2016
A little something for us cat lovers. Nice collection of mysteries with cats involved in various ways.
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