Cat Crimes Through Time - Hardcover

Not content with its dominion over the present (Cat Crimes for the Holidays, 1997, etc.), the master race now extends its reach back through history from ancient Egypt to the mid-20th century. The 21 original contributions are alternately gloomy (Tom Piccirilli's Poe pastiche), sprightly (Bill Crider's Hollywood idyll), charming (Gary A. Braunbeck's tale of a widowed mail-order bride), giddy (Elizabeth Foxwell's fantasia on Oscar Wilde themes), and historically doughty (Doug Allyn's medieval balladeer turned detective, Barbara Collins's investigation into the murder of Carry Nation's cat, Jon L. Breen's reminiscence of the silent-film era). Since they lack any considerable mystery, suspense, or ingenuity on the part of the human characters, they're best read as a triumphal procession of felines through the ages rather than as a series of crime stories that happen to feature cats. The one exception is Carole Nelson Douglas's evocation of a late Pharaoh's mummified cat that won't stay deada story that packs two teasing mysteries and some heads-up detection into the space of a sarcophagus. Now that cats have turned up everywhere from the Scottish Highlands to yesterday's war-torn Beirut, expect next year's dispatch to come from the moons of Jupiter. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The editors, prolific anthologists all, keep coming up with new ways to package short mystery fiction. This time, they target fans of both feline and historical mysteries. Unfortunately, their offerings are mostly mediocre. Each tale takes place in a period setting, with a feline figuring in the outcome, occasionally outsmarting the human characters. One of the few truly entertaining entries is Carol Gorman's "The Death Cat of Hester Street," set in late-19th-century New York. Also notable are "The Mummy Case," by Carole Nelson Douglas, a clever tale narrated by a sacred cat at Pharaoh's court in ancient Egypt, and "St. Margaret's Kitten," by Doug Allyn, wherein a troubadour and his adopted kitten find murder at a nobleman's castle in 12th-century Scotland. Only a few of the remaining stories rate mentioning, and those more for their human, rather than feline, characters. Gary A. Braunbeck's "Mail-Order Annie" tells of a mail-order bride with a big problem. "Fur Bearing," by Brett Hudgins, set in a 19th-century Canadaian fur-trapping settlement, presents lively characters. Most often, the authors in this collection seem to proffer their feline heroes as afterthought rather than as inspiration: readers can expect wet fur and few purrs.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.