Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; MP3 CD; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780425270202; 9781494564339
Berkley Publishing (Tantor Audio)
286 Pages
$6.39; $25.17; $2.99 Amazon
December 2, 2014
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Nora Charles doesn't believe in fate, even if she is a crime reporter who shares a name with a character from The Thin Man. In fact, she's moving back to Cruz, California, to have a quieter life. But after finding an online magazine eager for material, and a stray cat named Nick with a talent for detection, Nora's not just reporting crimes again. She's uncovering them...
Back in her hometown, Nora reconnects with old friends and makes some new ones, like Nick, the charming feline who seems determined to be her cat. But not everything about Cruz is friendly. Writing for a local online magazine, Nora investigates the curious death of socialite Lola Grainger. Though it was deemed an accident, Nora suspects foul play. and it seems that her cat does, too.
Apparently, Nick used to belong to a PI who disappeared while investigating Lola Grainger's death. The coincidence is spooky, but not as spooky as the clues Nick spells out for her with Scrabble letters - clues that lead her down an increasingly dangerous path. Whether fate put her on this case or not, solving it will take all of Nora's wits, and maybe a few of Nick's nine lives.
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When Nora Charles returns home to run Hot Bread, her family's deli, she also opts to write for an online magazine - but is tired of mediocre columns and wants to write something important. But she doesn't realize that something important might just fall into her lap...
While she's mulling over the fact that her mother's friend Lola Grainger drowned in a boating accident, she also knows that Lola was deathly afraid of water and never would have taken a dinghy into it, especially late at night. But she has no proof, at least until Nick shows up.
Nick is a tuxedo cat who appears outside her door one day, and when her best friend Chantal, who also read the Tarot, tells her that Nick is meant to be with her, Nora reluctantly agrees to take him until she can find his owner.
But after digging around she discovers that his owner was a private investigator, Nick Atkins, who disappeared after being hired to find out if Lola's death was deliberate. She decides it's a sign, and goes on to investigate herself. In doing so she contacts the police for information and meets Detective Daniel Corleone, who is temporarily filling in for the detective who was on the case, although he seems to know quite a bit about it.
The more that Nora finds out it seems the more Daniel knows, and if she's not careful, she might run into enough trouble to get herself killed...
I really liked the premise of the book - I absolutely love classic films (including The Thin Man) so this was a big plus for me; I love Hammett's books, and I love cats. Unfortunately, while the book was decent, it didn't live up to the premise. I do have to say that after reading it however, I got the feeling that Nick is also holding the spirit of Nick Atkins, and that's why he's able to help Nora so much. Why? Because Nora mentions the part about the white streak in his fur behind his ear, and later in the book Ollie (his partner) also mentions it, stating he never noticed it before now...probably because it wasn't there. Once you hear about the things Nick does, it makes more sense in the book.
Saying that, I didn't really care for Nora. She didn't seem too bright. Nick gives her three letters from a Scrabble game - which can only make two words - and she chooses the wrong one; she doesn't even rearrange them to get the correct one. Then, she's extremely rude to people and refuses to share information with Corleone, even though he's the officer and she's a civilian. She actually gets mad when he tells her that he doesn't have to share info with her! He's right - he doesn't.
Not to mention she goes to Lola's husband's company under the guise of checking on a catering contract then just blatantly questions Patti about the murder. Yeah, sure, that made sense. Did Patti get suspicious? Not really. Did she have Nora escorted out? Nope.
She just wasn't terribly likable. She supposedly was an award-winning crime reporter, yet treated the investigation clumsily and got goo-goo eyed every time she saw Corleone. She lied to him repeatedly, and I would think a crime reporter would want to stay on the good side of law enforcement, but she didn't seem to care. Crime reporters are very careful about their sources of information, but she didn't list the police in this at all; she pretty much treated him as the enemy.
I also didn't like how she treated Nick at first. You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat animals, especially cats and dogs. And she didn't want anything to do with him, which tells me she's selfish and self-centered. It wasn't until she discovered that he could help with her investigation that she was interested in him, but it didn't matter, because she didn't take any of his "warnings" to heart.
There were little inconsistencies - one being that Ollie said he was allergic to cats and had to take antihistamines, yet when he rubbed Nick under the ear he didn't sneeze. So he had the foresight to take one before he visited? Probably not. And it was never explained why he was still a PI if he wasn't doing well, and was he a bad PI so he didn't get cases? I rather liked Ollie and would have liked it if this was explored more. At the last, I also wondered how much money Hot Bread actually made if they're only open for lunch. Most delicatessens stay open all day - she'd have to have an awful lot of customers to make a decent living only being open for a few hours a day.
All in all, this wasn't a great book, but it wasn't a bad book, either. It was a decent read if a bit of a fluff; and I would like to see in the next book that Nora is a little more tuned into Nick (and why he's such a special cat); I would like to see more of Ollie, and see Nora be a little more likable person. It has potential.
https://www.amazon.com/Meow-Murder-Nick-Nora-Mystery/dp/0425270203/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2414287131
More on T.C. LoTempio's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/t-c-lotempio/
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