Book Review: The Cat Who Blew The Whistle

This book was one of the most boring book of the series. Or maybe it just was because it took 4 months to read it. I ran out of library renewals for the first time. Was it boring because of all the time gaps, or were there time gaps because it was boring? Makes me think of one of my favorite quotes: "If you read one page a day from your favorite author's new book, would you enjoy it? No. Then why do we read the Bible that way?" ~Keith Ferrin

I have included a summary of the book below, but I will first share my own opinions. I enjoyed how Qwilleran's new friend Celia (who appeared in previous books) went undercover at the Trevelyan house to find out things about the family. We also enjoyed the train-related imagery. One of the themes was that Qwilleran's lady friend, Polly, was obessed with the building of her home, and she bored Qwilleran. So she bored us as well. I hope that she will get written out of the series. I think about 6 things happened in the book, and then there was lots of filler between each one. So I think that contributed to our boredom - or maybe just since this is the 17th book of the series (?), we are bored with it.


Here is a good synopsis from the Amazon.com page for this book (taken without permission):

Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews The 17th entry in this series finds Jim Qwilleran and his two cats happily ensconced in their apple barn home in Pickax City. What with Qwilleran's tendency to change domiciles like most people change socks this in itself sets this book apart from the others. To make things even homier, Qwilleran's love interest; Polly Duncan is building a house just up the driveway from the apple barn having decided that her apartment on the campus of the new community college just wasn't going to work out. The main plot of this book involves Floyd Trevelyan, the owner of a credit union and a train nut. Trevelyan has just refurbished an old train and on the day of Old No. 9's maiden run state auditors descend on the credit union and Trevelyan disappears. Of course everybody naturally assumes that Trevelyan has run off with his depositor's money but Qwilleran just can't imagine that someone who loves trains as much as Trevelyan does would willingly leave behind his new toy. To add to Qwilleran's concern, Koko does his little death dance on top of a newspaper photo of Trevelyan and Koko's dances have never been wrong.

The secondary plot that runs through this book is the building of Polly's new house, which is tied to the first plot by the fact that her carpenter is Floyd Trevelyan's son. As for Polly, she worries so much about every little detail of the construction that Qwilleran is gravely concerned about her health, especially after her cat Bootsie gets sick. All the while Koko is acting more and more oddly as he tries to give Qwilleran clues as to what has happened and who caused it to happen. One of the added features of this book is that you aren't really sure just what crime or crimes have been committed until the very end. If you pay very close attention to Koko however you will get most of the clues that you need.

This book is more mystery oriented than many of the other books in this series and the mystery is worthy of any mystery book ever written. I doubt that even the great Sherlock Holmes himself could have solved this one without a little help from a certain feline detective. The final piece of the puzzle is so out of left field that it might have caused Dr. Watson to hyperventilate, but Koko knew the answer all along and spent most of the book trying to enlighten Qwilleran. Adding even further laurels to this book is the return of Celia Robinson, a terminally happy grandmother from Down Below who was a major player in one of the earlier books in this series and who plays a major role in this book.