FREE: The Cat Who Saw Red, by Lilian Jackson Braun

The listing, The Cat Who Saw Red, by Lilian Jackson Braun has ended.

Paperback, Good condition
5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the early cat who books,
Amazon Review By Roger Long "longrush" 5/4/2004
The early "Cat Who" books have Jim Qwilleran as a middle-aged, impoverished, recovering alcoholic journalist barely hanging on at a newspaper in an un-named Middle West city. Later he moves north 400 miles to a little town and inherits a fortune. "The Cat Who Saw Red" is the last mystery novel that ties him to the gritty city, and it is the best of the city books--by a considerable margin.
Other readers have outlined and commented on the plot, so I will say only about it that the plot here is much better than in the previous city novels. It moves better and the outcome is more logical, more satisfying. But the author's forte is not plotting. It is in the remarkable characters, unusual without being grotesque (a fine line to walk), not the least of whom are Qwill's Siamese cats. To those who have read none of the series, it may sound just a little too cutesy, having prescient cats solve crimes, but the writer makes it work and work quite well.
The writer also excels in creating atmosphere, the city, the newspaper office, fancy and not so fancy restaurants and Maus Haus, a rather weird boarding house for people interested in food--and in pottery.
Like Dickens, Ms. Braun invents no astonishing plots. Her great strength is in making characters come to life in interesting settings. As in Dickens, characters and settings are sufficient.