From Publishers Weekly

In this tame, nonmysterious mystery, bucolic Pickax City, in Moose County ("400 miles north of everywhere") is first disrupted by vandalism, then by murder. When Harley Fitch, vice-president of the Pickax Bank, and his wife, Belle, are found shot to death, police chief Brodie, a bagpipe-playing Scotsman, thinks that vandals, from neighboring, low-class Chipmonk are responsible. After three of the suspects die in a car accident, the case is effectively closed. But Jim Qwilleran ("former journalist, now heir to the Klingenschoen fortunea big man about 50, with graying hair, bushy moustache and doleful expression") doesn't agree. Involved though he is in starting up a newspaper, juggling several platonic romances, redecorating his house and spoiling his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, he finds time to snoop around. He doesn't discover anything, except for the spotted pasts of the deceased. Eventually, the killer attacks Qwilleran and his identity is made known; there are no clues, no logical way for the reader to figure out whodunit. The author's device of introducing every scene with stage directions, and her reliance on stereotypical characters, may bore even the readers who find Koko and Yum Yum as irresistible as Braun ( The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare , The Cat Who Played Post Office ) does. Mystery Guild featured alternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Lilian Jackson Braun composed her first poem at the age of two. She began writing her Cat Who... detective series when one of her own Siamese cats mysteriously fell to its death from her apartment block. Since then over twenty Cat Who... novels have been published, all featuring the very talented Koko and Yum Yum, Siamese cats with a bent for detection. She and her husband, Earl, live in the mountains of North Carolina.